“Falafel”

The original “Falafel”, as i found out from many sources was made with Fava beans (Fool). Israel, a country with people from all over the world, had to change the ingredients to accommodate the people from central Asia, like Iraq, whom are deadly allergic to beans. in most restaurant or the kiosks you will find that the Falafel is made from Chick Peas (Garbanzo Beans). I love Fava beans and there fore my recipe includes them too. Feel free to change it to the same amount of chick peas if you like.

Ingredients:
1 cup of Chick Peas
1/2 a cup of Fava beans
(let them sit in deep bowl of water with a tea spoon of salt over night. make sure they are covered completely with about an inch of water on top)
1/2 a cup of freshly diced onion
1/4 cup of chopped celery
1/4 cup of chopped cilantro
1/4 a cup of chopped Parsley
1 chopped clove of garlic
1 tsp of salt
1 tsp of cumin
1/2 tsp of ginger
1TBSP of olive oil
5 heaping TBSPs of Flower

Preparation:
Most people use the peas and beans right after they were sitting in water all night. I like to to cook them for about an hour in fresh water on low heat (after bringing the water to a boil). It gives the final product some fluffiness. Drain the water and mix all the ingredient in a food processor or use a hand blender (my favorite toy) until you get an even, light brown, mixture. let it sit for about 2 hours in the fridge.
Pour vegetable oil in a deep frying pan (at least 2″ deep) and add one tsp of salt to the oil and bring it to boil (you can tell it’s ready when you see the oil actually moving around) i like to defuse the flavor of the deep frying oil by adding about a TBSP of olive oil to the frying pen.
You could use an ice cream scoop to create small, 1″ size, balls (i like to use 2 spoons technique) and drop the balls one at a time into the hot oil (if the oil is deep enough they will flip once they are fried on one side) the falafel balls will turn golden brown. make sure that they are even color on all sides and scoop them out onto paper towel to dry. Taste one to make sure they are not too fluffy (empty in the center) or if they fall apart in the frying oil. If so, add an other TBSP of flower (i even added one egg white one and it was just fine). play with it – cooking, in my opinion, isn’t an exact science (like my spelling).