**Creating Falafel: A Step-by-Step Guide**

When it comes to creating delicious falafel, having the right ingredients and equipment is crucial. The most important component is the chickpea flour, which serves as a binding agent, ensuring that the falafel doesn't fall apart in the deep fryer. In addition to the chickpea flour, we also need herbs such as parsley, cilantro, and mint to add flavor and vibrancy to our dish. These herbs are coarsely chopped and added to the mixture along with other ingredients like garlic, fenugreek, cumin, and salt.

To start making the falafel, we first combine the chopped herbs with a handful of chickpea flour in a bowl. This mixture is then stirred until everything is evenly distributed. A binding agent like ground chickpea flour helps to keep the falafel together while frying. Other ingredients like baking powder and salt are added to provide lightness and lift to the falafel, making them less dense than usual.

The mixture is then formed into ping-pong sized balls, which should feel slightly fragile due to the moisture content. The chickpea flour helps to retain moisture inside the falafel, allowing it to cook evenly when fried. With all the falafel balls formed, we can move on to preparing the spicy green tahini sauce.

To make the tahini sauce, we need to blend together cilantro, parsley, garlic, fenugreek, cumin, and salt in a food processor. We also add lemon juice and tahini to create a smooth and creamy texture similar to sour cream. The addition of spices like cardamom and cumin imparts a unique earthy flavor to the sauce.

Once we've prepared both the falafel mixture and the tahini sauce, it's time to fry them in hot oil. To avoid splatters, we use a spider or a thermometer to monitor the temperature of the oil, which is set at 330 degrees Fahrenheit. The falafel balls are then carefully dropped into the oil, where they cook for about five minutes, turning golden brown.

While the falafel is frying, we can prepare other components of our dish, such as warm pita bread and a refreshing cabbage-mint-tomato salad. When the falafel balls are done, they're removed from the oil with care and seasoned with salt to enhance their flavor.

Finally, it's time to assemble our delicious falafel platter by spreading some tahini sauce on warm pita bread, topping it with a few falafel balls, and serving alongside the refreshing salad. With its rich flavors and crunchy texture, this dish is sure to be a hit at any gathering or meal.

**Tips for Cooking Falafel**

One of the key tips when cooking falafel is to not over-mix the mixture, as this can make it dense and unappetizing. Additionally, using the right type of oil, such as peanut oil or avocado oil, can help bring out the flavor of the falafel.

Another important tip is to monitor the temperature of the oil carefully when frying the falafel balls. If the oil is too hot, the outside will burn before the inside is fully cooked. Conversely, if it's too cold, the falafel won't cook evenly.

Finally, making falafel can be a bit messy and time-consuming, especially when cooking in large quantities. However, with practice and patience, you'll soon become proficient at creating these delicious little balls of flavor that are sure to delight anyone who tries them.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is way more fun with friend I must say yeah you know that's the thing about stuff like this it is fun to do it with someone else we are going to make falafel today I made this recipe last night so I know for a fact that it's delicious it was a huge success at a dinner party the trickiest part about it is the deep frying which really isn't that big a deal you need to be deep frying at home if you want to make falafel I don't really endorse peaking falafel I'm not going to show you how to do that it's gonna be okay I promise these are chickpeas that are dried these are chickpeas that have been soaked in water overnight as you can see they've over doubled in size we've hydrated them the most important factor in creating a falafel is the texture and the size of the blitzed up chickpeas if they're too finely ground the falafel will be dense if they're not finely ground enough it'll be kind of hard and brittle we're gonna break these down until they look like the texture of a finely chopped nut you can see that they're pretty well broken down there are still some large pieces I'm gonna blitz them a couple more seconds I'm gonna do half an onion you don't have to be precise about your cuts here because it's ultimately gonna end up in the food processor but you just want to break it down a bit smaller so that it breaks down at the same rate as all the rest so just coarsely chopping this this is a great tool for collecting lots of pieces of vegetables one jalapeno also chopping this I'm going to leave the seeds in that's gonna provide some heat and then one garlic clove just gonna smash it with the back of the knife and add it so we want about 1/2 a cup of chopped parsley just coarsely chopping the parsley it's gonna get broken down a lot more in the food processor about a 1/2 a cup and 3/4 a cup of cilantro if you happen to have more parsley than cilantro or you have mint at home and you don't have enough cilantro the most important thing is just that in total you have one and a quarter cups of chopped herbs scrape down the sides of this bowl similar texture to the chickpeas and it's nice and bright green which is what's gonna make the inside that pretty vibrant green color when it comes out okay so we're just gonna stir to combine these and make sure that all the herbs and aromatics get evenly distributed we are going to add 3 tablespoons of ground chickpea flour here and that is going to serve as a binding agent so that your falafels don't fall apart in the deep fryer two and a half teaspoons of salt one teaspoon of baking powder which is going to provide lightness and lift so that they're not dense I have a teaspoon of cardamom and a half a teaspoon of cumin so all that's left here is to form these into ping-pong sized balls so you're just gonna grab a small handful and gently pack them together they're gonna feel like they might fall apart they won't the chickpea flour is here to save the day something about that size and then repeat this is gonna take me a minute 20 minutes later still making portions thank you okay so we're just gonna form these into ping-pong sized balls that's it that's all she got all right are you trying to squeeze moisture out of it no because the moisture is what's gonna help create the steam and cook the chickpeas inside when they're frying so yeah nailed it nailed it so the falafel balls have all been formed but before we go to fry them we're gonna make a spicy green tahini sauce so I'm just gonna coarsely chop those same herbs that we had in the falafel cilantro and parsley so you can include some of the tender stems of the parsley in the cilantro because they're ultimately getting pureed anyway and there's a lot of flavor in the stems I'm gonna add three cloves of garlic I'll just lightly smash those teaspoon of fenugreek and a teaspoon of cumin and a good pinch of salt and this is going to help break everything down we're gonna add the tahini and lemon juice to the food processor we'll puree that and we're looking for something about the texture of sour cream here that looks better a little bit more salt and the fenugreek is imparting a really nice earthy bitterness to this tahini sauce I would call that seafoam green whoa oh geez balls rolling all over the place okay so the fryer oil is at 330 degrees which is a little bit lower than you would normally deep-fry something at and that's because we want the inside of this to cook before it takes on too much color on the outside one way to avoid the splatter is to use a spider which is a really useful tool in the kitchen so just a couple at a time I'm gonna lower these into the oil and we'll let them cook for about five minutes so if you're if your oil is right at 330 once you drop in 12 falafel the temperature is going to drop significantly so you can crank the heat up a little bit to try and combat that okay you can see they're already starting to take on some color here but we're gonna let them go quite a bit further it's only been about two minutes so keep on keeping on notice they're perfect round little orbs okay I'm gonna put them under this wire rack so that they drain and then I'm gonna season them right when they come out of the oil with salt because the salt will adhere to the hot falafel much better than if they're cold smell how good did that smell I wish that we had smell-o-vision okay so we have warm pita which is very important I'm gonna drizzle a little bit of the green tahini and then I have a lovely cabbage mint and tomato salad over here that's gonna act as a nice refreshing foil for the fried falafel a couple of falafel balls some more sauce I mean that looks pretty badass so it wasn't that big a deal we did it on the food processor it took five minutes to fry them you might as well invite some friends over we're gonna make 24 falafel balls set out some pita set out some cabbage some hummus tahini and have a fawful party no no you're not he may like it's not working gentle pact not too dense oh yeah we're frying I'm bakingthis is way more fun with friend I must say yeah you know that's the thing about stuff like this it is fun to do it with someone else we are going to make falafel today I made this recipe last night so I know for a fact that it's delicious it was a huge success at a dinner party the trickiest part about it is the deep frying which really isn't that big a deal you need to be deep frying at home if you want to make falafel I don't really endorse peaking falafel I'm not going to show you how to do that it's gonna be okay I promise these are chickpeas that are dried these are chickpeas that have been soaked in water overnight as you can see they've over doubled in size we've hydrated them the most important factor in creating a falafel is the texture and the size of the blitzed up chickpeas if they're too finely ground the falafel will be dense if they're not finely ground enough it'll be kind of hard and brittle we're gonna break these down until they look like the texture of a finely chopped nut you can see that they're pretty well broken down there are still some large pieces I'm gonna blitz them a couple more seconds I'm gonna do half an onion you don't have to be precise about your cuts here because it's ultimately gonna end up in the food processor but you just want to break it down a bit smaller so that it breaks down at the same rate as all the rest so just coarsely chopping this this is a great tool for collecting lots of pieces of vegetables one jalapeno also chopping this I'm going to leave the seeds in that's gonna provide some heat and then one garlic clove just gonna smash it with the back of the knife and add it so we want about 1/2 a cup of chopped parsley just coarsely chopping the parsley it's gonna get broken down a lot more in the food processor about a 1/2 a cup and 3/4 a cup of cilantro if you happen to have more parsley than cilantro or you have mint at home and you don't have enough cilantro the most important thing is just that in total you have one and a quarter cups of chopped herbs scrape down the sides of this bowl similar texture to the chickpeas and it's nice and bright green which is what's gonna make the inside that pretty vibrant green color when it comes out okay so we're just gonna stir to combine these and make sure that all the herbs and aromatics get evenly distributed we are going to add 3 tablespoons of ground chickpea flour here and that is going to serve as a binding agent so that your falafels don't fall apart in the deep fryer two and a half teaspoons of salt one teaspoon of baking powder which is going to provide lightness and lift so that they're not dense I have a teaspoon of cardamom and a half a teaspoon of cumin so all that's left here is to form these into ping-pong sized balls so you're just gonna grab a small handful and gently pack them together they're gonna feel like they might fall apart they won't the chickpea flour is here to save the day something about that size and then repeat this is gonna take me a minute 20 minutes later still making portions thank you okay so we're just gonna form these into ping-pong sized balls that's it that's all she got all right are you trying to squeeze moisture out of it no because the moisture is what's gonna help create the steam and cook the chickpeas inside when they're frying so yeah nailed it nailed it so the falafel balls have all been formed but before we go to fry them we're gonna make a spicy green tahini sauce so I'm just gonna coarsely chop those same herbs that we had in the falafel cilantro and parsley so you can include some of the tender stems of the parsley in the cilantro because they're ultimately getting pureed anyway and there's a lot of flavor in the stems I'm gonna add three cloves of garlic I'll just lightly smash those teaspoon of fenugreek and a teaspoon of cumin and a good pinch of salt and this is going to help break everything down we're gonna add the tahini and lemon juice to the food processor we'll puree that and we're looking for something about the texture of sour cream here that looks better a little bit more salt and the fenugreek is imparting a really nice earthy bitterness to this tahini sauce I would call that seafoam green whoa oh geez balls rolling all over the place okay so the fryer oil is at 330 degrees which is a little bit lower than you would normally deep-fry something at and that's because we want the inside of this to cook before it takes on too much color on the outside one way to avoid the splatter is to use a spider which is a really useful tool in the kitchen so just a couple at a time I'm gonna lower these into the oil and we'll let them cook for about five minutes so if you're if your oil is right at 330 once you drop in 12 falafel the temperature is going to drop significantly so you can crank the heat up a little bit to try and combat that okay you can see they're already starting to take on some color here but we're gonna let them go quite a bit further it's only been about two minutes so keep on keeping on notice they're perfect round little orbs okay I'm gonna put them under this wire rack so that they drain and then I'm gonna season them right when they come out of the oil with salt because the salt will adhere to the hot falafel much better than if they're cold smell how good did that smell I wish that we had smell-o-vision okay so we have warm pita which is very important I'm gonna drizzle a little bit of the green tahini and then I have a lovely cabbage mint and tomato salad over here that's gonna act as a nice refreshing foil for the fried falafel a couple of falafel balls some more sauce I mean that looks pretty badass so it wasn't that big a deal we did it on the food processor it took five minutes to fry them you might as well invite some friends over we're gonna make 24 falafel balls set out some pita set out some cabbage some hummus tahini and have a fawful party no no you're not he may like it's not working gentle pact not too dense oh yeah we're frying I'm baking\n"