Falafels cooked in a aebelskiver/poffertjes pan..

I’ve made falafels many times before, always oven baked because I could just never bring myself to fry them! I’ve also seen posts from people using a poffertjes pan to cook falafels, and other patties and Indian cutlets, and decided it was time for me to finally treat myself to one.

For me, I remember this type of pan from my childhood for making mini Dutch pancakes ‘poffertjes’, but to you it may be an aebelskiver pan, used for making similar Danish goodies. It makes total sense to use them for cooking falafels or patties on a hob/stove with minimal oil. You can see below the tiny drops of oil in each hollow which proved to be a perfect amount…

I used it for the first time today for falafels and I will definitely use it again for these and other concoctions. 

The recipe I’m sharing below is a pretty standard falafel recipe, it is simple to play with it and create your own versions however. Today I threw together chickpeas, spring onions, garlic, dried herbs, spices, chickpea flour and lemon juice and it worked a treat! I got in there with my hands and started making little balls of mix which I flattened slightly in preparation to cook them. 

I have to tell you – I didn’t weigh or measure anything and I produced the perfect number of patties for the pan by pure luck….or sheer fluke!!!

Ingredients

250g dried chickpeas, placed in a large bowl of water and soaked overnight
1 medium red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 bunch flat leaf parsley
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 cayenne pepper (optional)
Juice of 1 lemon
Salt to taste
Flour of your choice as needed – I used chickpea flour, but it can be any flour 
Some people also add half a teaspoon of baking powder, I didn’t this time

Method

Wash and drain the chickpeas
Put everything EXCEPT the flour in a blender and chop to a chunky crumb, then put it all into a large bowl
Add enough flour to bring the mixture together in your hands, then create small balls of the mix and flatten them slightly to make the falafel shape 
Put your poffertjes pan over a low/medium heat and place a small amount of oil in each dip and allow it to heat up briefly
Place a falafel in each dip and cook for about 15 minutes depending on the size and the heat your using, I kept checking mine and moving the pan around as it doesn’t sit evenly over the gas on the hob/stove 

I served mine on freshly made homous as is traditional, I highly recommend it! 

I’m taking my falafels to this week’s Fiesta Friday, co hosted this week by the lovely Jhuls and Antonia…

My falafel mix experiments for Suzanne…

What do these three dishes all have in common….?

The title of the post no doubt gives it away:

they all utilise my homemade falafel mix, which is the basis of a guest post I put together for the lovely Suzanne from ‘A Pug in the Kitchen’…do pop over today and check it out. I hope you like it 🙂 

And whilst you’re at it, if you don’t already know Suzanne and her blog, have a good look around: she’s an amazing cook!! I am currently particularly coveting her beautiful tart…x

Keeping it green: cauliflower falafels & ‘spinach falafel homous’…

 Following on from making oven baked falafels this week, I, of course, then had a play with the recipe and ingredients. When I made the falafels during the week, I loved the flavours, the uncooked mixture was lovely even before it was cooked.I decided to try out the recipe again replacing the chickpeas with finely chopped cauliflower and some chickpea flour instead of standard plain flour and gluten free baking powder making the patties gluten free and low carb as something different…

So, taking Sadia’s falafels recipe, this is what I did.. 

Ingredients 

1/2 medium cauliflower, chopped into florets 

1/2 of a large onion

3-4 cloves of garlic

1/2 cup baby spinach leaves 

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp cumin powder

1/2 tsp coriander powder 

1/2 tsp pepper powder 

1/2 tsp red chilly powder/ cayenne 

1 1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp gluten free baking powder

3 tbsp besam/chickpea flour 

Method

I chopped the cauliflower to a small crumb in my blender first, then added everything else and blended it all together. I put the mixture in the fridge for a few hours to firm up a bit, it remained pretty sloppy though.

To cook the ‘falafels’ I heated a pan over a low/medium heat and sprayed a fine mist of oil across the base of the pan. 

With my hands, I formed balls of the mixture then placed them into the pan and flattened them. I cooked them until the underside started to brown then carefully turned them over to cook the other side. Keeping the heat low allowed the patties to cook through and firm up the mixture.

As above, I ate the first ones with my own harissa sauce (homemade rose harissa with extra tomato) and crumbled soft goats cheese. I finished the mixture off the next day with grated hard goats cheese.. 

  Keeping the flavours of the mixture in mind, I decided to make some more falafels and then to utilise the flavours in a dip.  Since making the first lot of falafels I had received a parcel of ingredients that I’d ordered including this falafel making tool.. 

  Isn’t it cool? And it looks like it’s made of recycled tin cans so there’s arabic print in the inside of the cup 🙂 

So this is how it works.. 

 

You fill the cup with the mixture, press it firmly into the cup then use the lever to push out the moulded falafel onto a sheet of oiled foil, lining a baking tray, ready to cook. Perfect little oven baked falafels..

Whilst making these, I made the dip: ‘spinach falafel dip’

Ingredients 

200g cooked chickpeas

200g baby spinach 

100g tahini 

1/2 of a large onion

3-4 cloves of garlic

2-3 tbsp lemon juice, to your taste 

2 tsp cumin powder

2 tsp coriander powder 

1/2 tsp red chilly powder/ cayenne 

1 1/2 tsp salt

Water as needed

Method 

Whizz it all up together until smooth, you will have to add the spinach in batches. 

So this was my lunch today: falafels, crisp lettuce, carrot sticks, my spinach dip, my homous and my harissa.  

     

Do you mind if I just say, again….I love my own food!!!! Belatedly, I am bringing this to this week’s Fiesta Friday, co hosted today by the fabulous Michelle and Juju, and hope that everyone fancies trying my concoctions. 

I hope you’ve all had, or are having, a great weekend x x x