- I receive questions frequently on how I get inspiration for my recipes and some of my recipes are classic recipes that just have my healthier spin on them and then some of them
are brand new creations that have never existed before. Today's recipe is an example of the latter and if you want a sneak
peek inside my brain, which might be a little bit scary this is how today's
recipe came to fruition. I received a comment
several months ago asking if I could make a sandwich bread recipe, now, I don't eat much sandwich bread and to be honest when I do I just buy a store-bought
gluten-free sandwich bread but I kept thinking of
the socca flatbread recipe I have on my website and wondering if there was some way I could do something with that. So that was simmering
in the back of my brain and then one day I was answering comments on my falafel recipe, which is a huge community favorite and I started thinking, hmm, I wonder if there's a way that I could combine the
socca flatbread recipe with my falafel recipe. I also had some inspiration
from Green Kitchen Stories who years ago created these
beautiful vegetable flatbreads and while today's recipe
is entirely different as it's not vegetable based, it doesn't contain almond flour or eggs, I still got visual inspiration from them. So if you combine all of the those ideas, from my socca recipe to
the flavors and ingredients in my falafel recipe and cut them into cute rectangular shapes, well, you have today's
recipe for falafel flatbread and I think you're really
gonna love this one so let's dive in. (gentle music) If you've made my
traditional falafel recipe, you'll be a pro at this because many of the steps are the same. You'll start with one
cup of dried chickpeas and you do want dry chickpeas and not canned chickpeas as canned chickpeas will
be too soft and wet. So add one cup to a bowl and then cover them by at
least two inches of water. Chickpeas triple in size when they soak and you wanna make sure that
you've got a big enough bowl and enough water to keep them covered. And you'll wanna soak these over night or for at least eight hours. I've already gone ahead
and soaked another batch and you can see how much bigger they are. They're also turn a brighter yellow color and your water might
look a little bit murky, but that's okay as we're gonna drain them. So pour them into a colander or strainer, rinse them with fresh water and then add them to a food processor. Once that's done it's time to add all of the traditional
flavors to the falafel mix and we'll start with a half a
cup of roughly chopped onion. The food processor will do
much of the chopping for us but I find that it's still best to roughly chop these ingredients just for proper measuring. Next, you'll need one large
bunch of parsley about this big. Remove the leaves with a knife and then roughly chop it. You should have about one cup
of roughly chopped parsley but if you have a little bit more or a little bit less, that's not a problem. Just add what you have
to the food processor. We'll do the same thing
with a bunch of cilantro. So remove the leaves from the stems and then give them a chop until you have a cup's worth. If you've tried my falafel recipe, you know I'm all about
that vibrant green interior and using fresh herbs for the best flavor, but a key ingredient in my original recipe and this recipe is a small green pepper. You can use a jalapeno or serrano pepper, and a serrano pepper has a bit more heat but this recipe is definitely not spicy, it's just flavorful. So cut that in half, remove
the seeds with a spoon and then dice it up before
adding to the food processor. Continuing our classic falafel flavors, you'll need three garlic cloves,
so peel those and add them to the other ingredients. Now, comes our spices and you'll need one teaspoon
of cumin, one teaspoon of salt, a half a teaspoon of cardamom and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper, along with a half a
teaspoon of baking soda. Add the lid to your food processor and then turn it on high or pulse it until the mixture starts
to resemble porous sand. I usually have to stop
it a couple of times and scrape down the sides, then reprocess, just to make sure it's all
blended and the same consistency. When you're done it should
be a vibrant green color and have a texture that looks like this. Scoop out all of the mixture and put it in a bowl, then, cover the bowl and chill
it for at least 30 minutes so that all of the
flavors can meld together. When the falafel is just about ready to come out of the
fridge, preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, this is where our flatbread differs from out standard falafel, because we need the bread to hold together and not break apart like
a falafel ball might, we need more binders. So we'll add a half a cup of chickpea flour, three
tablespoons of water and one tablespoon of olive oil and then, mix it all
together with your hands. After a minute or so, it should start to feel a bit more starchy and clump together better than a traditional falafel mixture. Grab a sheet pan and cover
it with parchment paper, then, transfer the flatbread mixture onto the parchment paper and start to flatten and
shape it with your hands. You wanna get it fairly thin, about a quarter of an inch thick, and I measured mine and
it was about 11 inches by 15 inches once it was
completely flattened. So it nearly took up the entire sheet pan. Bake the falafel flatbread for about 25 minutes, though
it's always a smart idea to check on it a couple minutes earlier as all ovens cook differently. When it comes out of the oven, the edges
should be slightly golden and the middle should feel
completely dry to the touch. Let it cool on the baking sheet and then once it's cooled, flip
it over onto a cutting board and remove the parchment paper. I like to cut my falafel
flatbread into nine pieces so they're a rectangular shape but if you wanted these for a snack or as the base for hors d'oeuvres you could cut them smaller. The great thing about
this falafel flatbread in addition to its amazing
flavor, is that it's much higher in protein than a regular
slice of sandwich bread and very filling. So I tend to just use one piece as an open-faced sandwich, rather than two pieces together
for a regular sandwich, but of course, it's up to you. You can enjoy the flatbread
fresh out of the oven but you can also store it
in the fridge or freezer and I've got some tips
on the recipe blog post. But here's the best part, if you do store it, you can easily reheat it by
popping it in the toaster. Over the last couple of weeks while I've developed this recipe, I had a lot of fun with toppings, so I'll show you a couple of ideas on how you can enjoy this. The first starts with
layering baba ganoush and I've been very generous with it here, but you could use hummus as well. Then I'll add some chopped
parsley, toasted pine nuts and spices. I'm using ras-el-hanout,
which is a Moroccan spice mix but even a pinch of
smokey paprika would work. If you want a breakfast option, you can mash half of an avocado and spread that around. Then, add some baby spinach leaves and top it with some soft-boiled eggs. If you've watched my video on how to make perfect,
soft and hard-boiled eggs, you might be able to tell that
these are eight-minute eggs. Then, sprinkle fresh
chives, salt and pepper and you've got yourself one tasty, healthy and very filling breakfast. If you wanna make the ultimate
green goddess sandwich, you could do that as well, just layer hummus, cucumber,
spinach, avocado and sprouts. The options are really endless on what you can top on
your falafel flatbread and I have a few more ideas listed on the blog post on my website so make sure to check that out. I hope you guys enjoyed today's video and if you did, make sure
to give it a thumbs up and share it with your family and friends and I will see you
again, in the next video (gentle music)
