Starving Artists: Falafel for Brahms

When a band schleps all the way to your apartment to play some tunes, the least you can do is give them some grub that's a step up from a packet of Handisnacks. So, in order to convince ourselves (and others) that we're actually capable of cooking, we've been slapping on a silly apron and whipping up desserts and snacks for bands who come over for Couch Sessions. Halfway between chef-like hospitality and your mom's after-school snacks, here's our take on foods we make. The recipes aren't always ours, but the shortcuts most definitely are.

BRAHMS-lafel!

I definitely should have been taught less about old buildings and more about food during my trip to Israel a few years go, because it clearly would have been more beneficial to know how to make a meal rather than who laid bricks where or why I was on top of another mountain. And, considering I was on a high-pita, high-fried chickpeas diet throughout the trip, it would have been especially beneficial to take back knowledge about falafel beyond how to order it from a mall food court in broken Hebrew.

But, after a few overnight flights and a couple hours in the kitchen, here’s what I do know: this isn’t the way to make authentic falafel. But hey, it’s much easier and a zillion times healthier, which in turn means you can both make and eat more than usual. (Awesome.)

This recipe is intended to make falafel-style patties, but if you make them small and round, then boom! Falafel.

Falafel Sandwich with Tahini Sauce

(adapted from Eating Well, Living Thin and About.com.)

Falafel:
(recipe from Eating Well, Living Thin)

1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup fresh or 1/4 cup dried parsley
2 cloves garlic, chopped
One 15-ounce can chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained
1 egg white
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon dried or 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon oregano
Dash cayenne pepper
1/3 cup fine dry bread crumbs, unseasoned
Oil or nonstick vegetable spray for frying

Chop the onions into quarters and the garlic cloves in half, and place in a food processor with parsley. Pulse until the ingredients are finely chopped.

 Add the drained can of chickpeas, and continue to pulse until there are small bits of beans in the mixture. Be careful not to overprocess it into a paste — once you're done, it should look like this:

 The original recipe recommends grating onions, pressing the garlic and mashing the chickpeas by hand if you don't have a food processor, but that requires too much upper body strength and the idea of mixing it all together by hand sounds insanely daunting, so give the ol’ blender a shot before you start doing something crazy like grating onions, since it'll probably make you cry more than a suburban mom watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Put the mixture into a large bowl and mix in egg white, cumin, cilantro, salt, lemon juice, baking powder, olive oil, black pepper and oregano.

We didn’t add cilantro and it was no big deal, and you can totally substitute, especially because you probably don’t have this much crap sitting around, but don’t skip out on more than two ingredients. The falafel had a ton of flavor, but since they’re not fried, you don’t want them to taste like sad, bland mushy bean plops.

There’s also no real way to make sure the ingredients are distributed evenly, so sprinkle them in different corners and keep mixing until your arm hurts.

Once everything is mixed, stir in the bread crumbs and put the bowl in the fridge for at least 15 minutes.

(While it’s in the fridge, prepare the tahini, and chop the tomato, lettuce and onions. You’ll want to eat the falafel while it's hot.)

Cooking time! Plop them in a skillet and fry 'em till they're brown.

Here's two ways to do it:

For regular oil:
- They won't really cook the whole way through, so flip once lightly browned on the bottom. Any longer and they’ll crumble apart.
- If you’re making them for a meal, make separate batches, and then re-fry them in oil right before serving.

For nonstick spray:
- Ugh. It won’t be easy, but it’s the closest you can get to falafel while still being healthy.
- Spray the entire pan, and then place the falafel balls in the pan. Using two spoons, control the shape of the falafels to keep them as round as possible.
- Once the oil appears to have cooked off, put nonstick spray on the empty areas of the pan between each ball, and then push the little falafels into the oily areas so they can cook. Repeat two or three times until finished.

Yum!

Tahini Sauce
(Recipe from About.com)

1/2 cup tahini
1-2 gloves garlic, crushed (we used three originally, and it was like sucking on a garlic lollipop. Be careful.)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice

The tahini sauce isn’t necessary, but it does makes it more of a meal instead of a snack, and also makes you feel like a big fancy chef. But it’s not like anyone here is try to pretend that they’re — well, moving on…

In your food processor, combine garlic and tahini. After that, add kosher salt.

Tahini sauce is like peanut butter, but gross. It’s impossible to get out of the container, but mix it until you give up before putting it in the processor with the garlic.

Once everything is fully mixed, it should look like this:

Remove from the food processor, place the mixture in a large bowl and add the olive oil and lemon juice. If you don't like the consistency, dilute it with a bit of water.

Use the biggest bowl that you have (unlike the one pictured), or wear clothing you really, really don’t like. I may have learned this one the hard way all over my Snoopy sweatshirt.

Ta-da!

Eat with your falafel, store in the fridge for later, or feed the next band you can find.

chomp chomp.

//

Big Ugly Yellow Couch Session: Brahms