Oven Baked Falafel Balls

Posted by whilehewasout on February 4, 2012 · 4 Comments 

My first encounter with the falafel in Israel sealed my future with these fantastic little balls. I’m not sure if I as certain at that time what they were actually made of, I just remember that the taste was unexpected and delicious. I haven’t really tried many others since then, but the other day I came across a recipe that I could not resist to try at home 🙂 I thought I remembered the ingredients however I seem to have lost some details on my way from the living room to the kitchen, thus I squeezed almost an entire lemon and forgot to add parsley… Although the balls were great even this way, I suggest you follow the original recipe because you might end up with an overwhelming lemon flavour 😉

I baked the balls in the oven instead of frying them.

Falafel balls

Ingredients:

– 1 can chick peas, drained

– an onion, chopped

-1 tbsp dried or fresh parsley

– 2 cloves minced garlic

– 1 egg

– 1 tsp salt

– 1/4 tsp black pepper

– 2 tsp ground cumin

– 1 tsp ground coriander (I only found whole coriander, so I mashed it myself)

– 1/4 t cayenne pepper (I didn’t have it so I just used some more black pepper)

– a large squeeze of lemon juice

– 1/2 to 3/4 cup bread crumbs

Preparation:

1. Mash the chickpeas.

2. Put all of the spices, egg, onion and lemon juice in the blender. Mix and blend well.

3. Add the mixture to the chickpeas paste

4. Start to add breadcrumbs and mix, until it is easy to form balls of the paste

5. Make small balls of the paste, and fry on a little olive oil or bake in the oven until golden brown.

Serve in a pita bread with lots of veggies and hummus for the best experience! It could even be a nice snack for the superbowl day with a fresh yoghurt dip or tzatziki.

Filed under Food, Recipes, Travels · Tagged with chickpeas, coriander, cumin, Falafel, hummus, Israel, recipe, super bowl, travel