The day of the falafel...
Street food at its best...
Today is World Falafel Day… it is a celebration of the iconic vegan fried patty, made from the humble chickpea.
Falafel has found fame as the emblem of street food throughout the Middle East and has become another of this regions controversial culinary traditions, with both Israelis and Arabs laying their claims to its cultural heritage, origins and best recipe.
Falafel are made simply from ground chickpeas with the addition of onion, fresh herbs and spices. They are formed into balls and deep fried until crisp and golden. Traditionally they are served on every street corner as a moreish snack, freshly fried and served in fluffy pitta bread with a chopped salad of tomatoes and cucumbers, pickles and lashings of creamy sesame flavoured tahina, or in a cafe or restaurant as part of a meze with hummous, olives, chips, tabbouleh and warm flatbreads.
The most widely accepted theory as to the origins of this popular food, is that it was bought to Egypt around 1000 years ago by the Egyptian Copts, descendants of the ancient Pharaonic people who came from all over the Middle East to settle in Alexandria. They initially made patties using fava beans or fūl in Arabic, a locally grown staple of the Egyptian diet that some say, may have given their name to the falafel many centuries ago.
Chickpeas are one of the earliest crops cultivated within the Fertile Crescent. From the family of plants known as Fabaceae (also known as Leguminosae) the chickpea is full of protein and fiber, and were known to have been a nutritious staple of the wandering Israelites, leaving doubt as to whether the falafel was in fact a food that heralded from the biblical landscape.
With both the Jews and Arabs having declared the falafel as the signature food of their culinary heritage, the chickpea patty is now classified as Israel’s national dish, having been made all the more popular in 1950’s by the immigration of thousands of Jews to Israel from Yemen, Iraq and Syria, who bought with them their favourite staple.
In 2012, Ben Lang, CEO of Innovation Israel called for an international celebration in the form of a special day for the world to celebrate the iconic Middle Eastern fast food, encouraging the world to eat, make and above all enjoy the falafel.
Each city in Israel boasts in making the best tasting falafel throughout the country and every food writer, journalist and foodie claims to know the best place to eat it. This is slightly subjective, particularly considering each recipe uses simple store cupboard ingredient based on the chickpea or fava bean or both. One thing is for sure, walk through the food markets of Jerusalem, Akko or Tel Aviv and you will find falafel being freshly cooked and being served in pitta with all the trimmings and each one will taste absolutely delicious and worthy of a day to itself in celebration.
I hope you will all enjoy the international day of the falafel and post delectable pictures on social media, sharing any recipes or recommendations for delicious tasting falafel with me at Cultural Bites, using the hashtag #FalafelDay.
Moshe Karbalnik, known to his friends as ‘Moshef’ started cooking at the age of 20 and is now a renowned chef and judge on Masterchef Israel. This is his recipe which he often makes as one huge cake instead of little balls, inspired by the Israeli chef and restauranteur Eyal Shani.
ingredients:
500g dried chickpeas
1 x medium onion
4-6 x garlic cloves
a large bunch of parsley
a large bunch of cilantro / coriander
1 x hot pepper / chilli
2 x tablespoons cumin
1 x tablespoon coriander seeds
1 x teaspoon baking powder
2-3 x teaspoons of salt
canola oil / vegetable oil, for deep frying
method:
the day before you intend to make the falafel, place the dry chickpeas in a bowl with plenty of water, and soak for at least 12 hours and up to 24 hours, changing the water a couple of times during this time, drain the chickpeas & leave for a few minutes to rid of any excess water
toast the coriander seeds in a dry pan for about 2-3 minutes, moving the pan around to evenly toast, transfer the coriander seeds to a mortar and pestle and crush them, or leave them whole and grind them in the food processor that we will soon use with the other ingredients
peel the garlic cloves, wash the herbs & hot pepper and remove its stem & seeds, put the fresh coriander, parsley, onion, garlic cloves, hot pepper, cumin, coriander seeds, baking powder and salt and pulse until roughly chopped & combined, add the chickpeas and pulse again into a smooth mixture
make the patties from the mixture which should be neither too thick nor too thin, if the mixture is too thick, the patties will come out dry, in which case you should add a little water to thin it down, then shape the patties the size of a small ping-pong ball, using all the mixture
heat the oil for deep frying in a not very wide pan to the temperature of 180 degrees or until the oil is bubbling, put in some falafels & fry for a few minutes to get a nice brown colour, when cooked, remove them from the pan & drain on absorbent paper, continue until all the falafels are fried, serve with pita bread & salads
Enjoy!!
