One of our favourite things to make any time of year, falafel can be used in so many dishes for delicious, protein-packed flavour!
Ingredients
2 1/2 Cups dried chickpeas (soaked overnight, or up to 24 hours. Pro-tip: add 1/2 tsp baking soda when they're soaking to lessen the chances of getting...gassy...)
2 onions, diced
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp sea salt
Ground pepper, to taste
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 Cup packed parsley leaves (Only use the leaves, as the stems make the flavour more bitter)
1/4 Cup packed cilantro leaves (same note for the parsley leaves)
2/3 Cup oat flour or chickpea flour
3 Tbsps Extra Virgin Olive Oil + more for frying
For Extra Wrap Goodies
3 Tbsps Milanese Gremolata Infused Olive Oil
Half a cucumber, diced into 1/4 slices
1 large tomato, diced
Salt & pepper, to taste
Directions
**Before you do anything, see note about soaking chickpeas overnight or up to 24 hours.**
Dice your onions, collect parsley leaves and cilantro leaves. Mix all of your spices together in a bowl.
In a large frying pan, cook your onions with the spices until the onion is nice and browned. Take off heat and let sit.
In a food processor, take half of the chickpeas and blend with the parsley and cilantro. Pulse until you get a grainy consistency, almost like grainy mustard. For the second batch, blend the other half of chickpeas with the cooked onions to the same consistency as the first batch. (Depending on how big your food processor is, you could do this all in one shot.) Mix both batches together in an large bowl, add the 3 Tbsps of olive oil and the flour.
Mix well until the mixture combines well enough to form 2 Tbsps worth of little pucks or like meatballs.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Cover 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, and form whatever shape you want for the falafel. Anything larger than 2 Tbsps per piece will affect cooking time.
Place full baking sheets in the oven for 20-25 minutes or about 10 minutes per side.
While those are baking, make the cucumber and tomato mixture, adding the Milanese Gremolata Olive Oil and salt & pepper.
Once the falafel is done baking, put them in a frying pan on medium heat, and crisp them up with a flavoured olive oil of your choice!
Optional Olive Oils for Final Fry of falafel:
Harissa Infused Olive Oil (spicy)
Cilantro & Onion Infused Olive Oil
Baklouti Green Chili Agrumato Olive Oil (spicy)
Cayenne Agrumato Olive Oil (spicy)
Milanese Gremolata Infused Olive Oil
Finally, create your wraps!
Note: you can find "Turnip the Beet" pickled turnips at http://www.thejellygirls.ca/ to make your wraps even more traditional!
