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    Falafel

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    Falafel

    It’s surprisingly easy to make this Middle- Eastern street food at home – just remember to soak dried chick peas overnight as the recipe won’t work with canned. Serve as mezze, or pile into warm pitta bread with tahini, houmous, chopped salad, pickled chillies and a lick of hot sauce. You can vary the recipe by adding chopped chilli, lemon zest or more herbs to the mixture, or by rolling them in sesame seeds before frying

    • Vegan
    • Preparation time: 15 minutes, plus soaking and chilling
    • Cooking time: 20 minutes
    • Total time: 35 minutes, plus soaking and chilling

    Makes: 16

    Ingredients

    300g dried chick peas, soaked overnight in cold water
    ½ onion, finely chopped
    small handful parsley stalks, chopped
    small handful coriander stalks, chopped
    4 garlic cloves, crushed
    1½  tsp salt
    1½ tsp ground cumin
    1 tsp ground coriander
    pinch cayenne pepper
    pinch ground cinnamon
    ½ tsp baking powder
    1 litre vegetable oil, for frying

    To serve
    3 tomatoes, diced
    ½ cucumber, diced
    handful parsley leaves, chopped
    handful coriander leaves, chopped
    ½ lemon, juice
    230g pot houmous

    Method

    1. Drain the chick peas and blitz with the other falafel ingredients (apart from the oil) in a food processor until you have a coarse paste; season with black pepper and chill for 1-2 hours.

    2. Heat a deep-fat fryer to 180 ̊C or fill a large, deep saucepan 1/3 fullwith vegetable oil and heat to 180 ̊C using a sugar thermometer. Roll the mixture into balls (you should make about 16). Fry in batches for 4-5 minutes, until crisp, golden and cooked through (cut one in half to check). Drain on kitchen paper.

    3. Toss together the tomatoes, cucumber, herbs and lemon juice; season. Serve with the falafel and houmous, piled into toasted pitta bread with chilli sauce, if liked.

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