Sunday 18 October 2015

Falafals take 2

Once I figure out that I can save a lot of money and produce a great tasting product; I'm hooked!  I decided to try this falafal recipe again but instead of using canned chickpeas I bought a bag of chickpeas for $2.50. A can of no name chickpeas usually goes for .89 cents. I was interested to see how many cups I would get from the dried chickpeas.

I rinsed and soaked them over night.
The next morning I could see a visibal increase in size.
I drained the water and filled the pot with water and brought it to a boil for 10 minutes and then simmered it for an hour.

Meanwhile I got my onions and garlic and  parsley blitzing.
I saved four cups of chickpeas for the falafals and the remaider I divided into 2 cups portions and put them in ziploc freezer bags. 
I have 16 cups in the freezer. Needless to say I saved a lot of money and for a little effort this is really a huge cost savings. Especially since we eat a lot of chickpeas; Curries, hummus, soups and our kids love them plain on their own as a snack.
Now back to the falafals...
I measured my dry ingredients...
I mixed the dry ingredients into all the blitzed ingredients from the food processor by hand.
At this point I thought rather than shallow frying the falafal balls I would see how they would baked. I lined a baking sheet with parchment paper and drizzle of some oil. Using my trusty scoop I portioned out the mixture. These recipe doubled gave me exactly sixty falafals.
This was a huge time saver and they actually baked way more even than browning them by hand. I didn't flatten them like I did last time and I think I prefer them round.
I flipped them once; they baked for a total of 35 minutes.
These were a big hit. Aubrey had them with crackers, hummus and pepper slices. What a great lunch for the kids. I did notice a texture difference in the falafal compared to the ones made with the canned chickpeas. The outside was crunchier and the inside was still soft and tender. 
Liam stole one off Aubrey's plate. Originally I think he thought it was a timbit but after one bite he was hooked!


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