falafel and friends

Last night, our friends Sara and Kelsey came over for dinner.  I set out to make this baked falafel recipe... everything was going fine until I decided that frying it sounded way better than baking it.  Mostly, it sounded better because it didn't require turning on the oven and heating up our already hot and steamy house (the AC is broken even if we wanted to turn it on -- thank God for attic fans).

The little patties fell apart a bit in the pan.  Round one was pretty crumbly, but round two stayed together fairly well (which round was which seems pretty explicit from the picture).

If you try these fried instead of baked, here are some tips:

• add a bit more flour than the recipe calls for.  like a "dash."  or whatever looks right :)
• if using a non-stick pan (like we did), don't use more than about a tablespoon of oil (we used olive)
• form them into balls, not patties before they hit the pan -- they will naturally slouch down into patties as they cook, but they seemed to stay together better if they were round initially.
• make sure to drain the chickpeas completely
• OR bake them like the recipe says!  

We ate them in whole wheat pitas with tahini, cucumbers, and spinach.  We also squeezed some lemon/lime over it all.  VERY yum.  Blake did a stellar job grilling the chicken drumsticks that accompanied.   Good eats.  Great friends :)


 You can find the recipe here at chowvegan.com.