There is a
Turkish food truck at my school that has ignited in me a wild and raging love
of falafel. It’s basically fried hummus that you can top with delicious sauces and
then wrap in warm flatbread and eat on the go. Seriously, what’s not to love?
It’s also a great vegetarian staple because it’s so protein filled. I knew that
when I saw Moosewood’s “Felafel” recipe, I would have to try it ASAP.
(P.S. I looked up the spelling “felafel” because I’d never seen it written that
way. Google autocorrected me to “falafel”, so I guess Moosewood’s
spelling is for artistic intrigue.)
In addition
to these adorable little chickpea patties, I made lemon-tahini sauce (tahini is
a sesame seed paste that is often found in Mediterranean/Middle Eastern food, especially
hummus) and pita bread. The overall meal took a long time to make mostly
because you have to let the pita dough rise.
Now, when I first read that instruction it puzzled me because I thought pita was what you ate during
Passover to symbolize what the Isrealites ate when they left Egypt in such a
hurry and didn’t have time to let their dough rise. That bread is called
matzah, which is really just flour and water. It’s crispier than regular bread
(yeast is what makes bread fluffy! Who knew??) and is almost like a cracker or
wafer rather than bread. So even though pita is a flatbread, since it has yeast
in it, it is technically leavened bread and needs time to “rise”. And it’s not
what you eat on Passover.
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| Pre-Risen Pita Dough |
So I passed the time working on the
falafel and sauce. Also eating the falafel and then restraining myself from
eating the rest of it immediately. The patties were super simple to make.
Basically just chickpeas with some lemon juice and spices all mashed together.
I caved and used my blender this time—a fantastic decision, though really
irritating to try to clean. I also added quite a lot of parsley so the final
mixture came out looking kind of like guacamole. The patties take a long time
to fry all the way through and my first few were still gooey in the middle. It
tastes absolutely fine either way, but the less cooked ones are harder to eat. I
was wary of cooking them too long though because I’ve had falafel that is
totally dry and mealy, so I wanted mine to stay moist.
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| Falafel patties! |
I also used the blender for the
lemon tahini sauce, so it took about 2 minutes. The tahini I bought looked like
natural peanut butter, and it actually has almost the same taste. Blended with
a lot of lemon juice, the sauce has a nice little tang. Definitely make it with
enough time to chill though. I tasted it when it first came out of the blender
and it’s not very good warm. I kept it refrigerated right up until it was time
to eat it and it was much better. I do wish it were creamier though. Moosewood
mentions that earlier recipes included yogurt or milk, but this one was dairy
free. It was kind of a weird consistency and not as light as I was expecting.
You can also make it with more water, which might help make it less intense in
flavor and more refreshing.
The pita, though delectable, is
really just obnoxious to make. If I was smart, I would’ve made the dough much
earlier and let it rise while I was doing work. But I was out of my apartment
for most of the afternoon, so I didn’t really have an opportunity. The pita
recipe is also full of weird instructions. After you bake them, you’re supposed
to wrap them in a clean towel and then put them in a brown paper bag.
Apparently this makes/keeps them soft until you’re ready to eat. It isn’t just
a weird Moosewood trick either; several other Internet recipes I found
had the same instruction. My first few did not quite puff up enough in the oven.
The smaller ones did, but the larger ones weren’t popping. I think part of the
problem was that the oven was not fully preheated when I put them in. Also, I
might not have rolled them out thin enough, because Moosewood said to
bake them for 6-8 minutes, but mine were in there for almost 10. But the
important part is that they still tasted like heaven.
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| Before... |
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| …After! |
I would call this a pretty winning
dinner both in taste and ease to cook. Recipe counter: 5/241. Over 2% done!
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