Thursday 21 April 2011

Black Chick Pea Falafel with Thick 'N' Chunky Tzatziki

Here’s what you’re gonna need to cook this shit up.
(Note: all measurements are approximate and likely inaccurate. I don’t measure, but the below listed measurements should be pretty close. I also encourage people to adjust the seasoning to their personal tastes. Cooking should be a personal thing. No one recipe is correct. Don’t let those snobby culinary school fucks tell you any different.)

For the falafel:

1 cup dried black chick peas – you can substitute regular chick peas if you can’t find black ones, but don’t use canned ones. Canned chick peas are precooked so won’t offer the texture that makes a falafel a falafel.

½ head of garlic, minced
1 tbsp ground coriander seed
1 tbsp ground cumin seed
1 tsp cayenne
½ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp each salt and pepper – use sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper. Processed, pre-ground black pepper is fucking gross.
1 cup parsley, chopped – you can use whatever type of parsley you like. I prefer Italian flat leaf. Curly parsley sucks, and don’t be fooled into buying Chinese parsley, unless, of course, you want cilantro. Chinese parsley and cilantro are the same thing. Brits call it coriander, which actually makes the most sense as it is the leafy growth of the coriander seed – the very same one ground up for this recipe.
2 tbsp olive oil

A bunch of vegetable oil for frying – I use sunflower oil. Canola and peanut oil are fine too. Don’t use olive oil; the smoke point is too low – it will burn before you can get it hot enough to fry your falafel. If you have a deep fryer that’s great, but if not a pot on the stove will work just fine. You can also bake them, but they won’t be nearly as good.


Soak your chick peas overnight – it is very important that you do not cook your chick peas or use canned. Falafel is meant to be crispy and crunchy, and you simply cannot get the desired texture using cooked or canned chick peas.
After soaking, drain the chick peas from the water they were soaking in, rinse ‘em, and toss ‘em in a large bowl.
Take all of your other ingredients, excepting the oil, and combine them in the bowl. Now you’re gonna need  to get out your food processor. If you don’t have one, you should get one – they’re super handy. You can use a blender if you must, but it won’t work quite as well.
Pulse the mixture until it reaches a rough consistency. 

This is another advantage to using dried beans. If you do over blend your ingredients, you’re still going to have a nice texture, whereas over-mixing with canned or cooked beans will leave you with a texture resembling baby shit.

Dump the mixture back into the large bowl and stir in the olive oil.
Now is the fun part – the getting your hands dirty part.
It’s like sandbox time, but with a much more delicious result.

Form the mix into little balls. You can get tools to help you do this, but there’s not much fun in that.
Get your fucking hands dirty; it’s worth it. It connects you with your food, and you can chase your friends around with your mucky hands, freaking them out and shit.
While you were playing with your balls, you should also have been heating up your oil to 375C. If you don’t have a thermometer, get one.  That being said, it should be about medium-high on your stove if you’re using the stovetop method – it’s what I use. Fry your balls until they are a nice golden brown, about 4-5 minutes. Remove them from the oil and place them on kitchen paper.
You can keep them warm in the oven while you build your wrap, or you can have your wrap ready to go. If you have assistance in the kitchen, wrap prep is an excellent task to delegate to your assistant. Red leaf lettuce, nice tomato, and feta cheese go very well with falafel. Put whatever the fuck you want in your wrap, though; no need to listen to me. Falafel is great with a lot of different wrap stuffing.
Tzatziki is a fantastic option.

What?
You don’t have any tzatziki?!?
That’s fucking stupid.
Here, fucking make some:

 You’re gonna need some ingredients.

These quantities will give you a shitload of tzatziki, which is great!
Tzatziki is awesome for dipping, and you can even use it as the base for pick-a-nickin’ salads – potato and the like.
2 cups thick yogurt
1 long English cucumber, seeded and diced – seeding an English cucmber is easy as piss. Just take a small spoon and scrape a channel down the middle of the halved cuke. The seeds are fine to eat – hell, they’re barely noticeable they’re so soft – but they are watery, and any extra water will thin out your tzatziki, and this tzatziki is a beefy one.
4 cloves garlic, pasted – To do this, mince your garlic and then, adding about ½ tbsp coarse sea salt, take the flat side of your knife and smoosh it on your cutting board until you have a nice paste.
1 lemon – get organic as you’ll need the zest as well as the juice – I assume you don’t want to add pesticide to your tzatziki.
½ medium red onion, diced – you can use whichever type of onion you prefer. I almost exclusively buy red onions; the lone exception being when the Walla Walla sweets are in season. I can eat those fuckers like apples; they’re amazing.
¼ cup dill, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste – I’m a big fan of pepper, so I use about a tablespoon; you may want to use a bit less.

Take your cucumber and onion, toss them in about ½ teaspoon of salt and set them in a sieve over a bowl. This will pull out any excess moisture that we don’t want thinning the tzatziki. Leave them for about an hour at room temperature and then pat them dry.
Put all of the ingredients in a bowl and mix ‘em up. With the lemon, you’ll wanna zest it prior to halving it for the juice. Also, roll the lemon under your palm with decent pressure to aid in the juice extraction.
Taste it.
Mmmm, that shit is CHUNKY!






Add salt if it needs it.
Put that shit in your falafel wrap.
This particular wrap could use some greenery - spinach perhaps



Eat it.

1 comment:

  1. That last pic lacks green, but you can really see the full texture of the falafel and the Chunk of the tzatziki (I don't like typing that word; it's awkward).

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