Felafel

The one recipe that I myself have inherited from my mother, who in turn learned from her mother, Flora, is felafel, Middle Eastern fast food. Now it turns out that there are many kinds of felafel, so don't tell me if you know felafel in a different form. And, as always, the measures are a little bit arbitrary. As my grandmother always used to say when asked how much of an ingredient was needed, "as much as it requires!"

Chick peas (1 lb of dry chick peas for 100 felafel)
Bread (5 slices per 1lb of chick peas)
Salt
Garlic
Cumin (lots and lots)

Soak the chick peas overnight, and mince together with the bread. Add some water if needed to ensure the mixture has a doughy consistency, but not too dry. Add some salt, garlic and cumin (lots and lots, as above), and mix. You can keep this in the fridge for up to a day, but you'll always need to add more spices before cooking.

Heat the oil (vegetable or sunflower) until it's hot enough, form little balls out of the mixture, and then fry. Ideally, the balls should be about an inch in diameter, so that they cook well.  The temperature of the oil also needs to be monitored by the time taken to cook - too long and they soak up oil, too short and they go crispy or burnt without cooking the inside.

When the felafel turns golden brown, take out of the oil, drain, and serve immediately with good pitta, salad (finely diced cucumbers and tomatoes), cucumbers pickled in brine (in the Middle Eastern style; I cut into spears so they can be easily inserted down the sides of the pitta) and, most importantly, tahina (or tahini as typically labelled here in the UK).

And Bob's your uncle.

This is just to get things going. Hopefully, my mother will take over from now, and correct any mistakes in this.
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15 February 2011
Carme tried this with her new felafel maker and got this. Wonderful!