From about 1990-1995 I managed a small fast food place in a downtown office building. It was originally called the Greek Garden. We did gyros, salads, spanakopita, and other Greek/Middle Eastern foods. We also did burgers, grilled never fried, fresh-cut fries, and fresh-squeezed lemonade. About early 1992 we changed the name to Twin Cities Fry and Grill. Kept the gyros, salads, and a few other things, but burgers and fries were the bulk of our sales.
I even designed the logo… did that using GeoDraw under Geos2.0 on one of my first PCs. Anywho, one thing we kept on the menu was falafel. Falafel is made from ground chick peas (or garbonzo beans, same thing), parsley, garlic, and a few other things… it’s ground up, fried, and usually used in making a sandwich in pita bread with a tahini sauce. I don’t care for tahini, but would eat falafel with tzitki (the cucumber sauce on gyros) once in awhile.
I probably haven’t had it since I was working at TCFG, and for some reason I wanted to make some this week…. except I was going to use canned soy beans instead of chick peas.
Why soy beans? Well… cause it’s what I had on hand when I thought of it, and because they’re just about twice the protein as the chickpeas are. So I figured I’d give it a shot. This recipe is loosely based on the one we made in the restaurant, with a few of my own tweeks thrown in. If you don’t use it all up, it should freeze decently too.
Here’s what you need:
1 can (about 15-16oz) soy beans (or chick peas/garbonzo beans)
1 ‘handful’ fresh parsley
1/2 of a large onion, chopped in to chunks
4-6 cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon seasame seeds
2 teaspoons cumin
bread crumbs made from 1 slice of bread or about 3 tablespoons flour
salt and pepper to taste
You’ll also need a food processor for this… I suppose you could try and mash them up by hand… but that’s a lot of work. A Magic Bullet type blender may also work, but you’ll have to do so in small batches.
Drain the beans, but keep the liquid, or least some of it. This is called “reserving the liquid” by the way. (You’ll read that in regular cook books all the time.) Rinse them off and throw them in the food processor.
Add the parsley… I used Italian, or flat-leaf parsley. The regular/curly-leaf most folks are familiar with works too. Basically just grab a fist full from the bunch and rip it off, tossing it in after the beans. I suppose it’s about 3/4 to 1 cup worth if you were to stick it in a measuring cup.
Next is the onions, garlic and seasame seeds. Put on the lid and turn the processor on high. It’s likely going to glob up on ya, and not mix up real well. Open the chute of the processor and drizzle in some of the liquid. If you forgot to reserver it, use water. You’ll likely only need about 1/4 cup, tops.
You’re shooting for a sort of… well… paste like consistency, and it’ll still be gritty. Kinda like this…
You’re shooting for a sort of… well… paste like consistency, and it’ll still be gritty. Kinda like this…
At this point, dump it into another bowl, and put the processor back together. Tear your piece of bread up in to chunks, toss in the processor and turn it on to turn that bread in to crumbs. I used 1/2 of an Arnolds Sandwich Thins I just posted about yesterday. If you don’t have bread on hand, just use about 3 tablespoons of flour. This basically is to help bind the whole thing together a bit as it cooks.
Throw the bread crumbs in the bowl with the bean mix, add in the cumin and some salt and pepper, stir it up good and and toss it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
At this point, you can store this in the fridge and cook a bit of it as needed, or finish prepping it and freeze what you don’t use. If you’re cooking for more than just yourself, you’ll likely use it all up.
Start you skillet heating over medium heat, a good cast-iron one works good for something like this. Take the bowl out of the fridge, wash your hands and grab up a glob of the bean mix. You want to press it into a ball roughtly ping-pong or up to golf ball size. Squeeze out as much of the excess water as you can and set it aside. You’ll get 10-12 of these out of a batch. I balled it all up and put what I didn’t cook in the freezer so I can just take a few out later as I want to use them up.
In the restaurant, we would ball these up to order and drop them in the fryer for a couple minutes. Made for a nice crunch shell with a soft inside. It’s kinda the best way to cook these, but not very WLS friendly. So instead, spray some non-stick spray in your skillet, put a few of the falafel balls in there and flatten them slightly, like you’d do for a burger patty.
Cook them for about 2-3 minutes, you want them to brown and start developing a bit of a crust, but not burn, then flip them over and cook on the other side. They are going to be soft… and you may need to lift them up, spray more non-stick spray, then flip them.
Give them another 2-3 minutes on the other side and plate them up!
If you can handle the fat, you can try putting some oil in the skillet and actually frying them until crisp. If you do that, they’d be good for breaking up on a salad. This way, you can eat them straight up or make a sandwich. Next batch I’ll be tossing in some lettuce, onion (maybe tomato) and instead of pita bread I’ll likely use a whole-wheat tortilla. But tonight, I was kind of winging it and just did them straight with some sautéed ‘bella mushrooms on the side.
Like I said, I don’t care for tahini sauce, but give it a shot if you want. I just used some fat-free ranch dressing tonight. Other sauces that would work, depending on what you’re having with this would be sour cream, cucumber sauce, dill sauce or… you could add some salsa and make tacos with this I suppose.
The soy beans have 13g of protein per serving. I used the whole can and got 12 falafel balls, and ate 4 tonight. So a typical serving is gonna be about 15g of protein here. If you use chick peas, you’ll be under 10. If you’re further out and can eat more than I can right now… try the chick peas and do these as a side to something else. But for those early on like I still am, the plate you see above made for a nice meal.
These really are easy to make, and quick… if you plan ahead for the holding time…. but if you like them, make a couple batches and freeze it so you can pull it outta the freezer in the morning to have that night.
Made your falafel recipe and was quite pleased. I am on the cusp between pureed and soft foods, and I love garbonzo beans, so wanted to try it. Yum! I had a teaspoon of lite sour cream instead of tahini or ranch dressing. Very delish, and now I have a bunch in the freezer. Thanks.
I used to live in the TC baby! St. Paul side!
[...] another recipe from back in my Twin City Fry & Grill days. Like falafel, the tabouleh is a middle eastern based dish made with parsley… it’s actually pretty [...]