FALAFEL BALL WITH TAHINI SAUCE

hey what's up let's face it life without great falafel is hard and brutish and unless you live in a place like new york city or jerusalem you probably don't even have access to it so today we're going to face this problem head on i'm going to show you guys how to make a proper crisp herb packed spiced kissed falafel ball at home i'm going to be getting into the details i'm going to show you guys how to make some accoutrement some condiments we're going to talk to it all so if that sounds like fun stick around let's get started [Music] oh yeah before we get started we need to answer that old question what makes a dope falafel in my mind it comes down to four things number one properly ground garbanzo beans and i'll talk to that in just a second number two tons of fresh herbs there's a reason i said herb packed in the intro of this video number three gentle warm spices not too much just enough we're talking about mama bear amounts of cumin and turmeric to turn this thing up number four the interior exterior ratio on these falafel balls has to be just right we're looking for a bunch of crunch but not too much and we're gonna get into more depth on all four but if you've got those things you've got great and i mean probably perfect falafel so that's the what let's get into the how this recipe is gonna begin with one pound of dried garbanzo beans that we've covered with about four inches of water and let's soak on the countertop overnight if you're asking yourself at this point is it possible to make falafel with canned chickpeas i can say with absolute certainty no from my experience it's always fallen apart the canned chickpea just has way too much water for it to stay together in the fryer so i'm gonna drain off the water and flip these garbanzo beans into the food processor the texture we're looking for here is something between a very fine gravel and coarse sand if we grind this thing too big we're gonna get crumbly hard to digest falafel that's just gonna fall apart in the fryer this is detail one from our list hitting the middle ground of texture is the most important thing in nailing this falafel so after about 20 to 30 seconds it should look like this it's gonna be loose and crumbly and well broken down we're gonna flip that into a bowl and then set the lid back on the food processor into that jar we're gonna add one half of a red onion that we've roughly chopped three garlic cloves one jalapeno with the stem removed 50 grams of parsley 50 grams of cilantro 15 grams of salt 5 grams of baking powder 5 grams of turmeric and 5 grams of cumin pop the top on the food processor now and chop until very well broken down we're taking the extra step of pureeing the beans and the aromatics separately here so that we can get the best possible texture for our balls when i first started making falafel i threw everything in the jar at once but what ends up happening is you get under pureed chunky onions that are sitting in over pulsed just totally broken down garbanzo beans at this point we're going to fold the green paste into our chopped beans all we're doing here is just stirring to combine all the herbs that we put in here are going to give the final falafel a huge dose of green freshness and a considerable amount of moisture this is the second major detail that i talked to earlier in my opinion a falafel ball without plenty of herbs just kind of falls flat once things are fully mixed here we're going to grab a little bit and shape it into a ball i just like to see how wet things are at this point depending on how much water was in the herbs and onions it can be a little bit juicier than we'd like for a hot fryer so i got in the habit at this point of adding about one to two tablespoons of garbanzo bean flour this makes things a little bit more well bound but it also brings more tenderness and almost creamy quality to the final product if you don't have garbanzo bean flour don't sweat it a little bit of all-purpose flour works here as well once we're happy with the falafel mixture and it doesn't seem overly wet we're gonna preheat our dutch oven over medium heat and into that we're gonna add about three cups of neutral oil these days i tend to use avocado oil more often than not for high heat cooking it has a high smoke point it's considered a healthy fat and it doesn't oxidize and degrade like vegetable oil would but it's pretty expensive so if you don't want to spend eight to ten dollars to fill up your fry pot vegetable oil canola grapeseed oil anything standard like that it's gonna work just avoid olive oil or anything flavored to be safe i like to bring my oil up to temperature slowly like over the course of 20 minutes and that's just because if i get distracted i don't have three or four cups of oil that are just sitting on a jet burner waiting to explode into flames so while the oil is coming up to temperature we're going to shape our falafel balls there's not a lot of art and science involved here i kind of eyeball the shaping of these actually i usually grab an amount that is slightly smaller than a golf ball and then i roll it in the palms of my hands and give the guy a good squeeze of pressure at the end to firm it up and then i set it on a sheet tray and let it hang out while i finish rolling out the rest of these balls if you can help it don't go too much bigger or smaller than this golf ball size the ratio of tender creamy interior versus brown crunchy exterior is just about perfect at this size if they're too big they're going to be raw and pasty and they're just going to be lacking the right amount of crunch per bite we've still got some time before this fryer comes up so we're going to prep out the rest of our garnishes real quick so up next we're making tahini sauce and this recipe is going to be more of like guidelines or a framework instead of an exact formula because the thickness and consistency of tahini varies widely from brand to brand so grab a medium tall sided container and intuit measure 100 grams of tahini this lemon juicer is raw dude i'm not even sure if it's safe it's like a rusty metal in there anyways we're gonna use this lemon juicer to juice one half of a lemon or about 15 grams to that we're going to add 75 grams of water and eight grams of salt i'm also going to grab a half of a garlic clove slice that up and throw it into the cup so grab your immersion blender and puree this really well at this point i'm going to check the consistency and as you can see things are a little bit thin this brand of tahini sauce i haven't used a lot and i definitely need to add a little bit more i'm adding two more tablespoons that's bringing me up to about 130-ish grams all day we're going to spin that in with the immersion blender and we're going to taste it again this time around it tastes really good all we're looking for here is something that's bright and balanced and it should be saucy just like this so use your own palette to taste yours you might need to add some water or salt or lemon and just adjust it as needed this sauce is good on pretty much anything so if you end up with extra good for you i'm gonna throw this tahini sauce in the fridge real quick and now i'm gonna make a quick batch of tabbouleh for that i'm grabbing a bag of cauliflower rice listen guys i know bulgur wheat is normally what we use for tabbouleh but i like the lighter fresher quality of using a vegetable instead and as some of you guys know lauren's gluten-free so burger wheat wasn't an option in the first place so to get this started i'm just going to throw one and a half cups or about a half bag of this cauliflower rice into a saute pan all we're looking to do is to thaw it out and take off the raw edge that only takes about 20 to 30 seconds in the saute at that point i'm gonna flip it over into a stainless steel bowl and cool it down for a second while that's cooling i'm gonna grab a big bunch of parsley and throw a good chop into it we want this stuff really well broken down so run your knife through it more than once maybe three or four times once we got that chopped we're gonna scoop this into the cauliflower bowl and we're gonna season it up with a strong pinch of salt and the other half of that lemon that we used in the tahini sauce stir it up give it a taste it should be very aromatic very sharp from the lemon and really pop on your tongue the last little bit of prep here before we fry the falafels is just going to be making a quick tomato cucumber salad for that i'm grabbing two small kirby cucumbers and one pint of cherry tips to cut the cucumbers we're going to break them in a fourth and then gently remove the seeds this is optional by the way but i don't like how wet they can make things later on so i'm zipping them out real quick after the seeds are cut out i'm just running a medium chop through these cucumbers we're gonna scoop those into a bowl and then we're gonna cut our tomatoes so this is a fun trick i use two deli lids in a serrated knife this makes quick work of cherry tomatoes if you haven't used it before next time you get take out save the lid this is a really handy way to save some time once you've got that whole pint of tomatoes chopped up fold those in with the cucumbers we're gonna hit this whole thing with two generous pinches of salt and a really strong hit of black pepper we're gonna set that aside in the fridge while we fry our falafels at this point the oil is heated up to 350. so it's time to set up the fry station on the right i've got my sheet tray with a wire rack and a slotted spoon and on the left is where i'm going to post up my shape falafel balls let's check the oil one more time just to make sure we're up to temp and then using the slotted spoon we're gonna lower the falafel balls in one at a time i personally like to do this in three batches of eight if you overload the fryer it cools things down a little bit that affects how crunchy the falafels get but they can also get stuck together when there's too much in there we're gonna fry these falafel balls for about five to six minutes and about halfway through that we're gonna put our spoon in there and just stir things up to make sure any spots that are sticking out of the oil are getting flipped down so they can fry all the way after about four minutes i'm gonna pull one out and take a look it's starting to get there it's starting to get crisp but it's not all the way golden brown so i'm gonna pop that in and continue cooking for another minute or two once they're looking nice and dark we're gonna cut one open to make sure it's cooked through if things were still raw there'd be a noticeable ring of squishy unset bean paste right in the middle this one's perfectly cooked it's got a ton of crunch and i know that because i burned my mouth really bad eating it i'm gonna head back over to the pot grab the rest of these falafel balls out of the oil and drop my second batch now is definitely the snack point while we're frying the second and third rounds you always gotta crack a few of these falafel balls give them a taste it pretty much ruins you for the meal later on but i'm hungry now there's freshly fried falafel right there i'm gonna eat them so round two is done round three is done about 20 minutes later we've got a full sheet tray of falafels and now we reach a choice point we gotta decide what do we do with these falafels and garnishes normally lauren and i would turn this into a salad we'd put the tabouli the cucumber tomato salad on some nice greens and then just cover it all with some tahini but clearly the more craveable option is to turn it into a sandwich and for me making it a sandwich always requires a few things we gotta have sambal or some sort of spicy sauce pickled peppers we gotta have dill pickles i usually go for hummus and then of course we've got our tomato salad our tabouli and our tahini sauce so this is where things got really fun for me when i was making this video i accidentally bought whole wheat pitas at whole foods and got them home realized it and then decided to make it work anyways and as you can see here i have hot falafel balls i'm ready to go building the sandwich and it crumbles the second one crumbles the third one crumbles the entire package is trashed and i'm running red hot like i said the falafel balls are hot and ready and i want them badly so i have run up to the store real quick and get some white flour pitas hoping that they're gonna work guess what they don't they crumble i'm trying to go for that pita pocket style falafel sandwich and it doesn't work crumble after crumble after crumble so i decide to go with a taco style falafel sandwich and i've had this before at a few restaurants but for me the classic is always the handheld pita but we're past that now we're firmly into falafel taco territory so to do that we're gonna throw a pita into a saute pan to heat it up get it toasty get it pliable and then i'm gonna put down a heavy base layer of nice hummus as a glue behind that we've got three chopped falafel balls our cucumber tomato salad plenty of tahini and to garnish all that we're gonna go with three to four pieces of dill pickle a solid handful of sweet pickled banana peppers or if you only had pepperoncinis that will work as well we're gonna top that up with some sambal and then finally we're just gonna soak this thing in tahini sauce so that's a pile of food let's check it out let's take a bite here we go so obviously if you can find great pita or make your own that would be ideal that's how you can get those really nice pita pocket style falafel sandwiches but to me the falafel taco or gordita or whatever chalupa whatever you want to call this thing is like look at this it's dough the tahini and the sambal and the hummus all kind of come together to form like a sandwich moistening super condiment and then you got crunchy cucumbers and tomatoes that bring a really nice fresh note and then of course we got all that parsley uh tabouli in there this is one of the best ways to eat your vegetables that i could think of on earth and this is vegan for those of you that care how about that cheers dude so here we are we made it great falafel in the home is possible and now it's ours i hope you guys give this recipe a try let me know in the comments down below how it works one last thing before i get out of here some of you guys have been very generous and helped out this channel by buying me a coffee the link for that is down below and if you're more curious please click through see what it's about it's a great way to help us buy groceries for the channel and just overall to support what we're doing so thank you so much to anyone who's helped us out there we really appreciate it as always guys thank you so much for your time and attention thank you for being here and we'll see you next time

Channel: Brian Lagerstrom

Views: 170,903

Keywords: falafel, falafel balls, falafel recipe, falafel sandwich, how to make falafel, best falafel recipe, tahini, tahini sauce, tahini sauce recipe, chickpea falafel, garbanzo bean falafel, how to fry falafel, fried falafel ball, fried falafel in pan, cucumber salad, falafel taco, make falafel, homemade falafel, falafel from scratch, falafel sauce, falafel and tahini sauce recipe, falafel toppings, weeds and sardines, tomato salad, brian lagerstrom

Id: 82u87A5NyaY

Length: 12min 45sec (765 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2020