When I make falafel I always use Osem Falafel Mix. Of course, that’s because it’s the only mix they carry around here. It’s pretty good, actually.
But homemade falafel was mentioned in another thread, so I thought I’d look at a recipe. Many of the people commenting on the recipe complained that although they followed the recipe exactly, their balls fell apart in the oil. ‘Mess’ was a common description. I’ve never had the balls made with the Osem mix fall apart. Does anyone have a foolproof, guarantied-not-to-fall-apart from-scratch falafel recipe?
No recipes, but I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Falafel’s Drive-In. Without question, the best “tacos from Morocco” in San Jose.
There’s some Jewish Falafel from the street cart in Manhattan that really can’t be beat. Their secret is that they used dried, soaked, ground chickpeas, mixed weith fresh spices and herbs,… They are simply scooped with heavy duty ice cream flip scoops… directlt into the oil - deep-fried in peanut oil. They also have an excellent spicy red pepper sauce and a cool “white sauce”.
I find that mixing in some flour and water in the batter will help the balls stay together. Also, make sure the oil is heated to really, seriously, very freaking hot before you put the balls in.
My experience has also been that oil that is not hot enough has them fall away like a raccoon washing bread.
I like to make the balls smaller, or flattened so that they cook all the way through. They also fit better in the pita.
Last time I used nan. It held up better than pita.
Don’t cook the chickpeas … soak them overnight, drain and grind in a food processor. Cooked chickpeas (or canned ones) will make your falafel disintegrate.
Soaked, drained and ground chick peas will have the right consistency by themselves.
If the falafel mixture is still a bit too crumbly, add just a little bit of moisture or put the balls in the freezer for half an hour to firm up. I generally make a whole batch and freeze most - you can deep-fry them straight from the freezer.
I’ve tried a few times with canned / cooked recipes and it’s always been a mess. Sometimes it works just well enough, but IME there’s about 50% chance of the things just falling apart.
I don’t think I’ve seen any dried chickpeas here.
I might fry some of the hummus I made when I get home tonight. Perhaps adding flour keeps them intact.
I bake my falafels as opposed to deep frying them for health reasons, here’s the recipe I use. The balls don’t fall apart and can be adjusted to be dryer or wetter by varying slightly the amount breadcrumbs used. If your balls are too dry, which will tend to crack and fall apart, reduce the breadcrumbs.
Ignore the Cucumber Sauce recipe though, I make much better tztaziki utilizing greek yogurt. This stuff is a bland, boring imposter that’s not even worth the partly unnecessary effort involved.
If you give a coon a piece of bread, or more likely, he steals it from your trash, he will take it to a source of water and wash it until it disintegrates. You can almost hear the poor, hungry guy muttering, “WTF?!?”
(google raccoon latrine)