Oven Baked Falafels

This past two weeks, my husband was off work and it was very nice to have him home.   My husband loves to cook and this time he decided we will try making falafels.   We made a first batch following a recipe he had found on the internet but we needed to cook them in oil.   Last week, we decided to make meatballs and used mini muffin pans I had (2 twenty-fours and 2 twelves).   Hubby really liked using the mini muffin pans for the meatballs and already we had a ton of ieas on how to use them.   To be honest, these pans were barely used anymore.   But with a family of six and our big batch of cooking we make, these pans were not enough.

So one day, hubby thought it would be nice  to make more falafels but this time we would try to do it in the oven instead.  But to make more falafels and using the mini muffin pans, we didn’t want to stay inthe kitchen for too long.  So we decided that it would be a good idea to purchase more mini muffin pans.   I checked on Bed Bath and Beyond to see what was available and we discovered that a pan making 48 mini muffins existed.   We had a few of 20% off coupons so we decided to check to Wal-Mart before going to Bed Bath and Beyond.  Wal-Mart did have the 48 mini muffins pan but the price was higher than the one at Bed Bath and Beyond with the 20% off coupon.  So off we went to Bed Bath and Beyond in order to purchase a couple of 48 mini muffins pans.

Back home, we proceeded to prepare our mixture.  We had also purchased fresh parsley and coriander for the recipe. We had a bag of chickpeas that had been in the water since the previous day.  You will need a food processor to make this recipe.

Oven Baked Falafels

2 cups of soaked chickpeas
4 cloves of garlic
1 small onion, finely chopped (or half of a big one)
1/4 cup of fresh parsley, finely chopped
1/8 to 1/4 cup of fresh coriander, finely chopped
1 1/4 tbsp of flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 pinch of ginger

Before anything else don’t forget to do the following:

1) Chop garlic

2) Chop the parsley

3) Chop the coriander

4) Chop the onions.

 

Once all your ingredients are prepared, incorporate all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with a fork to blend the flavors.  For the dry chickpeas that had soaked all night, we decided to add 1/4 cup of lemon juice and mix some more.   

Take your food processor out and put the ingredients in it.  On pulse settings, slowly bring the mixture to a mush (Do not bring to humus consistence!).   Once this is done, transfer the mixture in another bowl and continue with the rest of the ingredients until you have gone through all the soaked chickpeas.

It is now time to make the falafels.   Our first time, we asked the younger three kids to make the balls which my husband cooked in the oil.  But we prefer not to have too much oil cooked food so the mini muffins pans are handy for this.   We filled each of the mini muffin holes with the mictures until the two pans we had purchased were full.

Bake at 400 degress for 30 minutes.

 

To make you sandwiches, use half a pita bread, spread tahini and a bit of ranch salad dressing, place cucumbers and tomatoes in it.  Use two falafels cut in two and roll it to eat.   Delicious!

BON APPETIT!

 

Note:  Once we went through the soaked chickpeas we had, we decided to use the cans of chickpeas that were in our cupboards.   Make sure you rinse these thoroughly before using them in the recipe.   We also skipped the lemon juice step.   And it will take 35 minutes to cook the falafels if you use the canned chickpeas.

In case you are wondering which mini muffin pans we have purchased, we used the Wilton Mini Muffin Pan – available on amazon.ca and amazon.com as well as Bed Bath and Beyond and Wal-Mart.  We have since purchased another one for our bulk cooking and plan to purchase a few more eventually.