Sometimes, I'll start a recipe thinking that it'll be a piece of cake (so to speak) and then have it dirty more pots than I own and take an hour longer than originally planned. This soup immediately comes to mind. It's a great recipe but takes more work than a pureed soup should take. (Frankly, the eight-ingredient garnish should have been a dead giveaway) So it's nice to have recipes take less effort and turn out better than expected once in a while. It's like an unexpected bonus, or like having an experiment work out on the first try...
This falafel recipe was one of these pleasant surprises. The falafels were tender and flavorful, and despite my initial fear of balls falling apart during frying, or the deep frying itself, it was definitely easier than I expected. During the frying process, I actually decided that being a fry cook might not be a bad career after all. I can kind of see myself reigning over the greasy corner of a diner, shrugging off oil burns to produce batches of golden, glistening fried goods.
I used my 3 quart cast iron fryer for this and it worked out great. The pot was small enough that it didn't require an excess amount of oil (1 liter for an inch deep). The additional benefit was that this process more than re-seasoned my pot and now it's absolutely nonstick. Lovely. The other lesson I learned from this first foray into deep frying is that it really doesn't use all that much oil. I started with a liter of oil and pretty much ended up with a liter minus a couple of tablespoons after frying 40 balls of falafel. But this begs the question: what do I do with a liter of used falafel oil?
Falafel
From Joan Nathan
The cooking time of dried legumes vary with time. Keep this in mind and try to buy the freshest chickpeas you can find.
1 cup dried chickpeas
1 small onion, roughly chopped
2 tbs fresh parsley
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried pepper flakes
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp baking powder
4-6 tbs flour
oil for frying (I used safflower, but any high heat oil would be fine)
Diced tomato, onion, and cucumber for garnish
Tahini sauce (recipe follows)
Pita bread
Put dried chickpeas in a large bowl with enough water to cover by 2 inches. Cover and soak overnight. Drain.
Put drained chickpeas, onion, parsley, salt, pepper flakes, garlic, and cumin in a food processor and process until blended. Stir in baking powder and 4 tbs of flour. Shape the dough into small disks. If the dough sticks to your hand, add more flour.
Heat at least 1 inch (preferably more) of oil in a heavy pan to 375F (dough will immediately start to sizzle when put into the pot at this temperature). Test 1 ball to start, if it falls apart, add more flour to the dough. Fry 6 balls at a time, a few minutes on each side, until golden brown. Serve with pita, tahini sauce, and garnishes.
Makes ~20 balls
Tahini sauce
Adapted from Mark Bittman
1/2 cup tahini
Juice of 1 lemon
1 clove of garlic, finely grated (with a microplane, ideally)
Water
Salt to taste
Stir together tahini and lemon juice. Add enough water to thin to your desired consistency and salt to taste. That's it! Leftover sauce keeps for a really long time in the fridge and makes for good salad dressing/veggie dip.
No comments:
Post a Comment