Middle Eastern Falafel
By: Mimi Cooks
Published: Saturday, December 19, 2009 - 8:59am

Ingredients




2 cups chickpeas, cleaned from the stones, washed and soaked overnight or soaked for at least 12 hours
6 mediums size onions
Few cloves of garlic, optional
Three bunches of cilantro
Three bunches of parsley
3 tablespoons of ground cumin
3 tablespoons of cumin seeds
3 tablespoons of ground coriander
3 tablespoons of coriander seeds
Salt to taste
Cooking oil for frying

Preparation

1 Soak the chickpeas for 12 hours. Drain and wash well. 2 Chop the cilantro and the parsley rough chop. 3 In the food processor, add chickpeas, parsley, coriander, and onions. Grind until all ingredients are mixed well and finely choppedd. The mixture should be smooth and homogeneous. Do this step in patches until all your ingredients are used up 4 Add spices to the mixture and mix well. 5 Let the mixture stand for an hour to allow the flavors to develop, and the mixture will be easier to shape. 6 Add one teaspoon of Bicarbonate Soda to the amount you are about to fry. 7 Prepare the falafel stuffing. 8 Shape the falafel rounds by hand or by the falafel shaper instrument if you have one. Fill the falafel with the stuffing and close the falafel ball well. 9 Heat up the oil. Make sure your oil is very hot before you fry the falafel. 10 Drop the falafel balls carefully, they fry fast. Do not stir while they are frying. 11 Take out of the fryer and place on paper towels to drain the excess oil. 12 Serve hot with pita bread, small diced salad, and tahini sauce.

About


This is an authentic recipe for Falafel, the popular food all over the Middle East. It is as popular as Hamburgers in the west. It is eaten by many people on a daily basis. It is affordable and nutritious at the same time. Usually it is made into sandwiches.
Falafel is stuffed into Pita bread with tomatoes and tahini sauce. Many other ingredients are added, it all depends on the personal taste.
There are varieties of recipes for making Falafel, but it all comes to the same basic ingredients with slight differences through out the Middle
East. In Lebanon they only use dry chickpeas, while in Egypt they use only dried and shelled fava (broad)  beans but in Palestine and Jordan they use a mix of chickpeas and fava beans.
You can make falafel from scratch and freeze the mix. Making falafel from scratch is very easy although it is time consuming but always a success and satisfying meal.