I adore falafel but I don’t adore how they are made by frying a lot of good ingredients in oil so I have tried making my own baked falafel which are pretty tasty and not too far off the originals.

Also, rather than having them in a pitta bread I have made a tabbouleh salad and drizzled them in good olive oil. Alternatively you could water down a little tahini and pour over the top. A dressing I have used in the past on one of my salads is tahini, apple cider vinegar, honey, splash of water, salt and pepper would be delicious on these.

Ingredients:

1 cup dried chick peas
4 -5 tbsp plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 large garlic cloves (crushed)
1 small onion or 2 shallots (roughly chopped)
1 tbsp harissa paste
1.5 tsp ground cumin
Half tsp ground coriander
large handful of chopped parsley
1 tsp salt flakes or half tsp pouring salt

Soak your dried chickpeas over night in a bowl of water, making sure that there is at least 2 cm more water above chickpeas as they swell over night. See image above of soaked and dried chickpeas.

Take your soaked chickpeas, garlic, onion, harissa, coriander, cumin, parsley and place into a food processor with a rotating cutting blade and pulse till mixed and a bit chunky still. Then add in the baking powder and 4 tablespoons of flour. Pulse again till mixed through and everything is combined and chopped evenly. If the mixture isn’t leaving the sides of the food processor then add one more tbsp of flour and it should combine a bit better.

Take a table spoon and dust with a little flour and scoop balls of the falafel mixture  with it and place on a baking tray covered in baking paper. With your oven on at 180 degrees place them into the oven for 6 minutes then flip them over then a further 4-6 minutes till they are firm with a bit of crunch on the outside.

To make the tabbouleh I used a mixture of cooked and cooled bulgur wheat and red quiona then mixed it with finely chopped tomatoes, parsley, mint, lemon juice, salt & pepper and a drizzle of good olive oil. I find that for the proportions of each item, use the same volume of herbs to tomatoes and double the grains. Season with the lemon, salt & pepper to taste.