When I was writing my book, Chickpea Flour Does It All, I wanted to include a variety of recipes for kitchen staples that would make weeknight dinners more practical—so that regardless of the time of year, you could always have a go-to meal.
In my own life, I generally make a few go-to staples on Sunday of every week—it makes dinners and Not Sad Desk Lunches much easier to put together.
No-Gadget Falafel (Falafel without a Food Processor)
World's Easiest Falafel and Tzatziki
Take falafel, for instance. Falafel is the perfect compact meal: full of protein, tons of flavor, and, most importantly, can be repurposed into a variety of meals throughout the week. Typically, falafel are made with chickpeas, but this recipe uses toasted, nutty chickpea flour with mung beans and quinoa to form its base instead.
Quinoa and Chickpea Flour Falafel with Romesco Sauce
I like starting the week with a simple falafel plate served with an easy blender romesco sauce and a light salad. And the falafel recipe provides plenty of leftovers for things like falafel tacos, falafel and slaw sliders, falafel toast with fried eggs, and chopped falafel salad.
On Sunday, or at the beginning of the week, start by making:
1 batch of quinoa and chickpea flour falafel (or your other favorite falafel recipe)
1 batch of romesco sauce
A basic vinaigrette
Quinoa and Chickpea Flour Falafel with Romesco Sauce View Recipe
Cucumbers, herbs, red onion, and other salad ingredients
Once you've done that, putting it all together is easy:
1) Falafel tacos
Top warm tortillas with salad greens, falafel, a simple avocado and radish salad, and some chopped cilantro. Then douse the whole thing with tahini sauce.
To 1/4 cup of unsweetened Greek or non-dairy yogurt, add 1 tablespoon of the romesco sauce and stir to combine. Spread a good amount of the romesco yogurt on each side of toasted rolls or hamburger buns. Add two or three warm falafel and top with slaw.
3) Falafel toast
Heat a couple of falafel in the oven, then mash onto toast. Top with greens, a fried egg, za’atar, and salt. This is also a good time to use up any extra avocado you may have.
4) Falafel salad
Toss chopped cucumbers, herbs, red onion, leftover radishes or other vegetables with salad greens, then top with some crumbled or cubed falafel. Add a tablespoon or so of leftover tahini sauce to your basic vinaigrette for a creamier dressing.
Plus, now that you're stocked with chickpea flour, there's plenty to do with that, too:
Savory Vegan Chickpea Crêpes With Vegetable Ragout
Chickpea Fettuccine with Harissa, Kale, and Olives
There are three types of falafel--Traditional falafel, baked falafel and lemon falafel. “Where the traditional falafel is the basic fried falafel comprising a mix of chickpeas, onions, garlic, herbs and spices, baked falafels are made using fresh herbs in the chickpea mixture,” says Chef Sati from Ophelia.
A binding ingredient can help keep it together, especially if you are using canned beans instead of dried. And the perfect binding ingredient for falafel is flour. Nothing fancy, just plain all-purpose flour. Add a few tablespoons at a time to your mixture, until you can press it easily into balls or patties.
If the mixture is too wet, the falafel has a tendency to fall apart when being fried so please pat dry the ingredients before using them. If you find the mixture is too wet, simply add little more breadcrumbs. The falafel mixture after prepared can be shaped by hand or with a tool called an alb falafel (falafel mold).
Baking soda and powder: Baking soda breaks down and softens the chickpeas as they soak. Baking powder, mixed in just before baking, makes the falafel light and airy. Fresh herbs: The tender leaves of parsley, dill, and cilantro bring fresh, herbal flavor and color.
Turns out that dried chickpeas are essential to good falafel. See, canned chickpeas have already been cooked. Starch molecules within them have already burst and released their sticky contents, much of which get washed away in the cooking liquid, leaving the remaining chickpeas with very little clinging power.
Falafel is a great dish to encourage people to eat a more plant-based diet, which benefits the body as well as the environment, Amy Shapiro, RD says. It's high in protein and fiber from the chickpeas (one cup of which has 15 grams of protein and 14 grams of fiber).
Is Falafel Vegan? Since falafel is prepared with chickpeas, herbs, spices and alliums, it is vegan. However, falafel is sometimes served in wraps which may not be vegan, or with yogurt- or dairy-based sauces, so be sure to seek out vegan-friendly accompaniments.
Falafel is usually made with fava beans in Egyptian cuisine, where it most likely originated, with chickpeas in Palestinian cuisine, or just chickpeas or a combination of both in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria and the wider Middle East.
Beans' and chickpeas' starchy compounds, stachyose and raffinose, don't digest completely in the small intestine, which often leads to gas. Skip the falafel truck on your lunch break, and your stomach (and everyone else in your yoga class) will thank you later on.
If your making it at home then to reduce gas, soak with quick method, the beans and discard the soaking water before cooking them. Or cook in pressure cooker from dry further limiting the fermentation time!
Overnight soak: Place the dry chickpeas in a large bowl, add enough water to cover them by 1 inch, and let sit uncovered at room temperature for 20 to 24 hours. They should double in size to give you about 3 cups of chickpeas. When ready, you should be able to break apart a chickpea with your fingers.
Falafel is usually made with fava beans in Egyptian cuisine, with chickpeas in Palestinian cuisine, or either just chickpeas or a combination of both in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Falafel are deep-fried balls or patties made from chickpeas or fava beans, sometimes both, plus fresh herbs and spices. Falafel is a popular Middle Eastern street food sold from vendors or fast-casual spots in countries such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Israel, where it's the national dish.
Rather than having very finely minced chickpeas as the base of your falafel, the fava beans are already bound together and so they are able to hold their shape naturally. The fava bean batter also ends up wetter than the chickpea batter, this causes more steam to evaporate when frying which gives it an airy texture.
In Greece we make something which is similar to Falafels, called Revithokeftedes. However, they are quite different in taste, as in Greece we boil the chickpeas and the spices used are much different.
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Introduction: My name is Virgilio Hermann JD, I am a fine, gifted, beautiful, encouraging, kind, talented, zealous person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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