Baked Falafel

Baked Falafel

Falafel, a traditional middle-eastern food are chickpea fritters made by grinding chickpea and herbs like parsley and coriander leaves. It is a street food usually served with tahini dip.It is also served in pita bread with Tahini, Hummus, Toum, veggies and pickles. While growing up in Jeddah it used to be ‘Tamia’ for us only after getting here in the UAE I came to know it has a more common name ‘Falafel’. 

Though all the ingredients make it a super protien food, the frying part fails it. I love falafel but rarely makes or buys the fried ones. So in the mission to keep this Ramadan as grease free and healthy as possible I thought I would bake it. And it did go well Alhamdulillah…So let’s go to the recipe…

Chickpeas- 2 cups, soaked at least 6 hours, preferably overnight.
Fresh Parsley leaves – 1 C
Fresh Coriander leaves- 1C

Fresh mint leaves- 1 Tbsp
Garlic- 2 cloves
Onion – 1 small
Green chilly -1 to 2 ,optional
Cumin seeds-1 tsp
Coriander seeds -1 tsp
Baking soda- 1/2 tsp
Salt as required

Sesame seeds optional

Steps in baking falafel.

DIRECTIONS:

1.Drain the Chickpeas very well, we don’t want any liquid while processing it.
2. Lightly roast the cumin and coriander seeds and crush it gently.
3. Now comes the hardest part if you don’t have a strong food processor. You have to get the    Chickpeas with all other ingredients ground to a fine grained consistency.
 Add all the ingredients to the processor jar and process to a uniformly ground mixture.
 Remember salt should be added in this stage itself. Later addition will not get it evenly mixed.
 Refrigerate the mix for at least one hour.
4. Preheat oven to 180°C. Take a high rimmed baking pan. Grease or line it with baking paper.

5. Scoop out lime sized balls out of the chickpea mix and gently press it to make patties. Place each one inch apart.
6. Brush the tops with olive oil and bake for 15-20 mins ,then flip it over, brush some more oil and bake for another 15- 20 mins.
The colour would have changed golden on both sides.
Crispy crusted yet soft inside Falafels are ready to be served…

To serve with, you can try my Pita bread, Tahini dip , Hummus or Toum(Garlic dip)….

Falafel dipped in tahini and a bite….

NOTES:

Always mix the salt while grinding itself to leave out salty spots in your bites later.

Soaking the chickpeas longer can get it ground easily.

A mixer grinder jar can replace a food processor but go in lesser portions to grind it easily.

Parsley is not easily available as it is here in the middle east. In such cases just go with the coriander and mint leaves.

The baked ones still have the greentint even when its cooked well.

Alternately you can also fry these if you would prefer to.
Refrigeration is highly recommended before shaping and cooking as it holds its shape well after refrigerating.