I am always curious to try new recipes or doing some edible experience. I enjoy for example trying to copy something that I ate in a restaurant or doing something that I saw by the window of some food store.  As part of my job, I am quite keen to know what the market trends in terms of eating and by doing that I saw quite a lot falafel. At the beginning, I didn’t get what it was even if it was quite popular as a super food ingredient. I shortly discovered that it was a fancy name for chickpea balls, so I decided to give it a go.

As part of my job, I am quite keen to know what the market trends in terms of eating and by doing that I saw quite a lot falafel. At the beginning, I didn’t get what it was even if it was quite popular as a super food ingredient. I shortly discovered that it was a fancy name for chickpea balls, so I decided to give it a go.

As buying falafel is quite expensive, I decided to give a try and make them homemade and quite frankly I have been so surprised how easy it was to make them and how tasty it is. That is so great to add to your lunch box salad as it is quite filling and give you your protein portion.

• SERVE: 
• PREPARATION: 15 minutes
• COOK: 5 minutes
• DIFFICULTY: 

What do you need?

• 200g of dried chickpea
• 1 onion or half an onion (it depends on how much you like onion)
• Bunch of fresh parsley
• Couple of basil leaves
• Salt
• Pepper
• Smoked paprika
• 3 tablespoon of flour
• Sunflower oil

How to make homemade falafels?

• The night before, put 200g of dried chickpea in a bowl full of cold water and leave them in a fridge for the whole night

Take a large bowl as overnight the chickpea will expand

I store the bowl in the fridge as I am sure that nobody will touch it.

• The next day, dry the chickpea and put them in a food processor
• Add salt, pepper, smoked paprika, chopped onion, chopped fresh parsley and basil
• Mix all the ingredients all together for at least one minute until having a paste
• Then add the flour and mix it again

The mixing time depends on the power of your food processor, indeed it is important to get a thick paste for then making the chickpea

• Once the thick paste obtained, make some small ball of the mixture and roll them in flour

I used a small cookie scoop for having similar ball size

• In a pan, put some oil and heat the oil for a couple of minutes
• Once the oil is hot, put some falafel on it and let them cook for around 5 minutes

The number of falafel that you can cook at the same time depends on the size of the pan that you are using

• Then let the falafel dried out on a kitchen roll sheet for absorbing the fat
• Serve them quickly after along with a yoghurt sauce or store them in the fridge for a couple of day in a plastic container

More recipe to try and enjoy: