Falafel!

A vegetarian staple. I'm so pleased to have found so many take-aways in Edinburgh that sell it! Having chips as the only veggie option in the kebab house gets real old real quick...But of course, it's much cheaper and healthier to just make it at home, and surprisingly quite easy.

My recipe is adapted from Rose Elliot's in 'The Complete Vegetarian' (my favourite cook book, I seriously recommend it!). I've doubled it (believe me you'll want a lot of them), reduced the salt (she puts too much salt in, even for me) and changed the cooking method (she recommends deep frying them but I choose to bake). Of course if you want to halve it back to the original recipe go for it, but I like to make extras to use in lunches throughout the week :)

Makes 24 small patties.

Ingredients:

2 x 400g tins of chickpeas, drained and rinsed (or 500g dried chickpeas, soaked in cold water for 24hrs)

1 bunch of parsley

1 large or 2 small onions

4 garlic cloves

3tsp cumin (seeds or ground, I prefer seeds but make sure you briefly toast them first)

3tsp ground coriander

pinch of chilli powder

1tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

ground black pepper to taste

oil, for greasing

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200C/400F/Gas Mark 6

2. Whizz up the parsley in a food processor. If you have a big enough food processor then empty the parsley and put on a plate to the side. If you're like me and have a ridiculously tiny one (see picture. what is the point of it? came free with our flat though so not complaining..) just leave it be for now.

3. If you're working with a big food processor then put in the chickpeas, chopped onion and garlic, cumin, coriander, chilli powder, baking powder, salt and pepper without cleaning it so any parsley stuck on the sides can be mixed in. Whizz up until the mixture is smooth and holds together well. I don't have a big food processor so I just put everything in a bowl and use my trusty hand-held whizzy...thing...to mix it up. You could probably just mash it if you had neither, though the onions would have to be very finely chopped.

4. Rose recommends you now leave the mixture to stand for 30 minutes, but it isn't essential. Mix in the parsley by hand, apparently adding it at this stage makes the falafel lighter (and not like those HORRIBLE dense 'Cauldron' falafels you can buy from supermarkets, sorry Cauldron, I love your sausages but you need to sort out your falafel). 

5. Form into small patties and lay out on a lightly oiled baking tray. Again it's recommended but not essential to leave them to rest for another 15 minutes.

6. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. 

7. Serve! I had some of my latest batch in a tortilla wrap with salsa, kale and sour cream, NOM. Store any extras in the fridge, they can be eaten cold too and are a great sandwich/wrap/pitta filler!