Whether you are a vegetarian or not, you should try this Chickpea falafelas it is a delight for any palate. The most common is the one made with broad beans, as in Egypt, although the one made from chickpeas is becoming popular all over the world.
It is an Arabic dish very popular in the middle east. In essence it is like a croquette whose base is chickpeas or crushed beans, after being soaked for a few hours, to which garlic and cumin are added.
Ingredients:
(For 4 persons).
- 300 gr of chickpeas.
- 1 large onion.
- 5 garlic cloves.
- 2 teaspoons of cumin.
- 1/2 cup of fresh parsley.
- 1/2 cup of fresh coriander.
- 1 sachet of baking powder.
- Salt and ground black pepper.
- Extra virgin olive oil.
Chickpea Falafel Preparation:
The very important first step is to place the chickpea in a bowl to soak for eight hours. This is the key, to soften the legume, not to cook it, to be able to prepare the base dough for this recipe. If we leave them a few more hours in the water it will not hurt them either and we make sure that the legume has softened.
After eight or ten hours, we drain the chickpeas with dedication to remove any remaining water. This will prevent the dough from compacting well. We put the legumes in the glass of the hand blender and blend.
On the other hand, we peel the onion and garlic and chop them very finely together with the parsley and coriander. We add everything, the yeast as well, to the chickpea paste. We mix until get a homogeneous paste to work with later. Season to taste and let it rest for an hour.
Once the dough is settled, we are taking portions, the size somewhat larger than a walnut. Before, in a frying pan we heat plenty of oil. We fry the falafel balls for about five minutes, until they are well browned and we pass them to a source with absorbent paper.
The last step is the plating. We can serve them with yogurt sauce or pita bread. It also goes perfectly with some of the spicy-flavored Arabic sauces.