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Felafel

serves 6

from The Moosewood Cookbook by Molly Katzen * comments by Lynn Apple

Ingredients

4 cups of cooked chick peas (1000gms) *canned chick peas are ok to use
3 medium cloves of crushed garlic
1/2 cup cup minced celery
1/2 cup minced scallions (green onions)
1/2 teaspoon (tsp) ground cumin
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper *you can use 1/2 tsp if you like it spicey
dash of black pepper
1 1/2 tsp salt *don't use anymore even if you double the recipe
2 beaten eggs
3 Tablespoons (Tbs) of Tahini *to make sure you have good quality tahini always look for tahini that has about an inch of oil at the top of the container...you need to mix the tahini well to blend in this oil before you measure any amount of it..you can find it at Middle eastern groceries and also often at health food stores
3 Tbs flour
extra flour for rolling balls in before frying them



Method

Mash the chick peas well (or run them through a food processor) Combine with all of the other ingredients. Chill the batter well in a sealed container. Whe batter is chilled begin by forming the batter into balls and roll each one in the extra flour ..* this extra flour will help to keep the batter together as they fry. Heat a heavy skillet or frying pan with about 2 inches of oil *any vegetable oil is ok . Let the oil get hot but not smoking. Fry the felafel balls a bunch at a time carefully* turning them from time to time until they are nice and golden all around. * The trick is the oil needs to be hot but not too hot as you want the balls to cook on the inside too and if the oil is too hot they get done only on the outside... you will need to experiment a bit to get the right oil temperature... break open the first few and see how they look inside...should not look like batter.

You can serve them right away or if you want to make them ahead of time then put them in a baking dish and plan to put them in a hot (180°C) oven for about 10 minutes before you serve them.

While the felafel batter chills you can make the sauce to accompany the felafel Tahini Lemon Sauce and also it is good to serve a salad with the felafel of chopped cucumbers, tomatoes and red/green/yellow peppers... with just a light vinagrette or lemon juice dressing. Tradionally felafel is served with warmed pita bread and it is good to get the Lebanese style pita as it is most tasty.