There are many recipes for making falafel, which have become a popular street food. Although they are widely available ready-made, I recommend making them yourself – much more delicious and cheaper too. I’ve adapted this recipe from Claudia Roden’s Jewish Food. The Israelis use chickpeas, but Roden prefers dried, peeled broad beans, aka fava beans, following the Arab method - both work well. Dried, peeled fava beans are readily available in Middle Eastern food shops. Unusually, the beans are not pre-cooked, but given a long soak to rehydrate them. Canned/cooked beans will not work in this recipe! In order to grind the beans to the fine texture required, you will definitely need a food processor. It’s also important that both the herbs and the beans are as dry as possible. Once you have formed the paste into small patties, you can store them for a few days, uncooked, in the fridge, or freeze them. Make sure that they are completely defrosted before frying.

Falafel are best eaten freshly fried, stuffed into a warm pitta bread along with tahini or Greek yoghurt, mixed chopped salad and pickles.

Ingredients

• 250g dried, peeled broad/fava beans
• A large handful of parsley or mixture of parsley and coriander, stalks removed, washed, and patted dry
• 4 spring onions, trimmed & chopped
• 2 large cloves garlic, peeled and crushed in a press
• ⅛ teaspoon cayenne or chilli (optional)
• 1 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 level teaspoon salt
• Vegetable oil for frying

Method:

Put the beans or chickpeas into a large colander and check for any small pieces of grit, then rinse under the cold tap. Put them in a large bowl filled with cold water. Leave to soak for 12 - 24 hours.

After soaking, drain the beans, rinse well and drain again. Tip them onto a clean tea towel and rub to remove excess water.

Finely chop the spring onion and parsley/coriander in the food processor, remove and set aside.

Tip the beans into the food processor and grind to a fairly smooth paste. You may need to stop the machine and scrape down the sides a few times.

Add the cayenne, cumin, coriander, baking powder and crushed garlic and continue to process until the paste is very soft and holds together well.

Then add the chopped herbs and spring onions.

Scrape the mixture into a bowl and let it rest for 1 hour.

Take small walnut-sized lumps and, using your hands, make round patties. You can freeze or refrigerate them at this stage.

Pour oil up to 1 – 2 cm deep into a frying pan and place over a high heat. When the oil is very hot carefully slide in the falafels – they should sizzle as they enter the oil. Now lower the heat and fry them for a couple of minutes on each side until golden brown. Remove and drain them on kitchen towels before serving.