Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Oven-Baked Falafels

I stumbled across a falafel recipe on the internet last week and was quite intrigued. I've seen fried falafels at restaurants, and while they sounded very good, I wasn't interested in wasting all of my daily calories on one fried meal! That's why I was pleasantly happy to have found this recipe. I made a few adjustments as I was only cooking for one and didn't have everything on hand. Also, I added my baked falafels to a salad rather than a pita. Both options sound delicious!

(I'll give the directions with the original proportions, which is great if you're cooking for your family. If it's just for one, go ahead and halve everything)

Start by preheating your oven to 400 degrees. For the falafels, combine 2 cans of rinsed and drained chickpeas with 3 tablespoons of flour in a food processor. Add 1 teaspoon of chili powder, 2 teaspoons of cumin, 4 cloves of minced garlic, 2 teaspoons coriander, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a dash of black pepper. Feel free to adjust the seasonings here to those that you have on hand and your taste preferences!


You can mix this in batches if you need to. The original recipe called for 3 tablespoons of parsley, but I didn't have any, so I added one of my favorite herbs - cilantro! If you don't have a food processor, mash this all together with a fork or potato masher.

Make small balls from the mixture - 2 inches wide and 1 inch thick. Really, you can make them whatever size you want, though! Just make sure they are all the same size, no matter how big or small, because that will ensure that they cook evenly. Place some foil on a baking sheet and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Place your falafels on the baking sheet and put in the oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

 Fresh out of the oven..... the outsides were crisp and the insides were soft. Very nice texture!

From here, add your falafels to whatever meal you want. I made a salad where I added some avocado and dressed with a squeeze of lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil, and some salt and pepper.

For the original recipe, they made falafel pitas. They were dressed with a mixture of tahini (sesame paste) and lemon juice. Falafels, lettuce, tomatoes and feta were placed in a whole wheat pita and topped with the dressing.

Either way, it's yummy and a much healthier version that the fried ones!

Mary

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