I Cook: Ta'amia (Falafel)

What makes Ta'amia or Falafel? Chick beans or Fava Beans or both. Falafel is a middle eastern food which is shaped like meat balls or small patties.Wrapped around with flat or pita bread. We like our Falafel with flat bread or tortillas and just fill in the sandwich with veggies such as tomato, lettuce, cucumber, and french fries (YES french fries!) and voila! A quick fix for lunch or dinner!

 I usually whip something up during the weekends.I seldom buy food from the office because pantry food (to which I call it) sucks. Yes, I did use the word "sucks". They often put cornstarch to any of their viands just to thicken the sauce and the quality just went down. Plus, it's quite unappealing too.

So one work day, I was looking at our groceries and wondering what I can bring to work. I saw Garbanzos (chick peas) and a few spices and I'm like "Let's do this! I'm gonna make Falafel!"  If you want to try it here's how I did it.

I used canned chick peas. I drained it and left it for a while just a bit to dry because the moisture will help the mixture later on.

Since I don't have a food processor, I use my trusty, cheap, over used blender and placed the chick peas in batches.

Press "grind".

It should turn out like this.

Now, I'm going to make my green paste. I made mine with 3-4 cloves of garlic (It really depends how much you want. But I like mine with that garlic kick) , a quarter of chopped onion and parsley. Place the garlic first and chop them using the blender. Add the onion and parsley and blend it. It will give you a green aromatic paste.

 In a mixing bowl, place in the chick peas and the green paste. Make sure that the mixture won't turn out too wet (but if so, don't worry, the bread crumbs will do the trick). The mixture should still have coarse like texture.

Add a tablespoon of flour,  quarter teaspoon of salt, 1/8 teaspoon of cumin and cayenne pepper (adjust if you want it spicy) and 1/3 cup of bread crumbs (I used Marby).Add 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder when I'm about to fry it.

Using a polvoron shaper, I fill it with the mixture making sure that it is tightly packed to avoid it from breaking when frying.

              Heat your pan with oil and set it on medium heat.

When the pan is hot and ready, I fry them until golden brown on both sides. 

Place them on paper towels to drain the excess oil.

 

And that's it! Home made Ta'amia / Falafel!.

Hope you enjoy making this one as much as I did.

Happy Eating!

xx