Molly Makes Fresh Herb Falafel

This is way more fun with friend, I must say.

Yeah, you know that's the thing about stuff like this,

it is fun to do it with someone else.

Yeah

(happy music)

We are going to make falafel today.

I made this recipe last night

so I know for a fact that it's delicious.

It was a huge success at a dinner party.

The trickiest part about it is the deep frying,

which really isn't that big a deal.

You need to be deep frying at home

if you want to make falafel.

I don't really endorse baking falafel,

not going to show you how to do that. (boppy music)

It's gonna be okay.

Sigh.

I promise.

These are chickpeas that are dried,

these are chickpeas that

have been soaked in water overnight.

As you can see, they have over doubled in size,

we've hydrated them.

The most important factor in creating a falafel

is the texture and the size of the blitzed up chickpeas.

If they're too finely ground, the falafel will be dense.

If they're not finely ground enough,

it'll be kind of hard and brittle.

We're going to break these down until they look like

the texture of a finely chopped nut.

You can see that they're pretty well broken down.

There are still some large pieces.

I'm gonna blitz them a couple more seconds.

I'm gonna do half an onion.

You don't have to be precise about your cuts here

because it's ultimately gonna end up in the food processor.

But, you just want to break it down a bit smaller

so that it breaks down at the same rate as all the rest.

So just coarsely chopping this.

This is a great tool for collecting,

lot's of pieces of vegetables.

One Jalapeno.

Also chopping this, I'm gonna leave the seeds in.

It's gonna provide some heat.

And then one garlic clove.

I'm just gonna smash it with the back of the knife.

And add it.

So, we want about one half a cup of chopped parsley.

Just coarsely chopping the parsley,

it's gonna get broken a lot more in the food processor.

About a half a cup.

And three quarters of a cup of cilantro.

If you happen to have more parsley than cilantro,

or you have mint at home and you don't have enough cilantro,

the most important thing is that,

in total you have one and a quarter cups of chopped herbs.

Scrape down the sides of this bowl.

Similar texture to the chickpeas,

and it's nice and bright green,

which is what's gonna make the inside

that pretty vibrant green color when it comes out.

Okay, so we're just gonna stir to combine these

and make sure that all the herbs and aromatics,

get evenly distributed.

We are going to add,

three tablespoons of ground chickpea flour here,

and that is going to serve as a binding agent

so that your falafels don't fall apart in the deep fryer.

Two and a half teaspoons of salt.

One teaspoon of baking powder,

which is gonna provide lightness and lift,

so that they're not dense.

I have a teaspoon of cardamon,

and a half a teaspoon of cumin.

So, all that's left here is to form these

into ping pong sized balls.

So you are just gonna grab a small handful

and gently pack them together.

They're gonna feel like they might fall apart, they won't.

The chickpea flour is here to save the day.

Something about that size.

And then, repeat.

This is gonna take me a minute.

20 minutes later, still making.

Yah, reinforcements.

Thank you.

Okay, so we are just gonna form these

into ping pong sized balls.

You're nailing it.

That's it.

That's all she got.

[Brad] Alright.

Are you trying to squeeze moisture out of it or not.

No, because the moisture is what's gonna help create

the steam and cook the chickpeas inside,

when they are frying.

Well done.

So yeah, nailed it.

Nailed it.

So the falafel balls have all been formed

but before we go to fry them we're gonna make

a spicy green tahini sauce.

So, I'm just gonna coarsely chop those same herbs

that we had in the falafel, cilantro and parsley.

So you can include some of the tender stems

of the parsley and the cilantro

'cause they are ultimately getting pureed anyway.

And, there's a lot of flavor in the stems.

I'm gonna add three cloves of garlic.

I'll just lightly smash those.

A teaspoon of fenugreek and a teaspoon of cumin.

And a good pinch of salt,

and this is gonna help break everything down.

And we're gonna add the tahini and lemon juice

to the food processor and we'll puree that.

And we're looking for something about

the texture of sour cream here.

That looks better.

A little bit more salt.

And the fenugreek is imparting a really nice,

earthy bitterness to this tahini sauce.

I would call that Seafoam Green.

Oh, oh geez, balls rolling all over the place.

Okay so the fryer oil is at 330 degrees,

which is a little bit lower

than you would normally deep fry something at.

And that's because, we want the inside of this to cook

before it takes on too much color on the outside.

One way to avoid the splatter, is to use a spider,

which is a really useful tool in the kitchen.

So just a couple at a time,

I'm gonna lower these into the oil.

And we'll let them cook for about five minutes.

So if your oil is right at 330,

once you drop in 12 falafel,

the temperature is gonna drop significantly,

so you can crank the heat up a little bit

to try and combat that.

Okay, you can see that they're already starting

to take on some color here,

but we're gonna let them go quite a bit further.

It's only been about two minutes so, keep on keeping on.

Notice, they're perfect round little orbs.

Okay I'm going to put them on to this wire rack

so that they drain and then,

I'm gonna season them right when they come out of the oil

with salt because the salt will adhere to the hot falafel

much better that if they're cold.

Smell

How good does that smell?

[Male] Oh that smells good.

I wish that we hade smellovision.

Okay, so we have warm pita which is very important.

I'm gonna drizzle a little bit of the green tahini,

and then I have a lovely cabbage,

mint and tomato salad over here

that's gonna act as a nice refreshing foil

for the fried falafel.

A couple of falafel balls.

Some more sauce.

I mean, the looks pretty badass.

So it wasn't that big a deal.

We did it all in the food processor.

It took five minute to fry them.

You might as well invite some friends over

if you are gonna make 24 falafel balls.

Set out some pita, set out some cabbage,

some hummus, tahini and have a falafel party.

[Anna] Molly it's not working

No, no, no, fear not.

(Anna laughs)

It seems like it's not working, gentle pack.

Okay.

Not too dense

[Anna] Alright, are we frying these or baking them?

Oh hell yeah, we're frying them.

Baking them.

(Anna laughs)