Falafel

Falafel is the ultimate favorite of everyone in my family as also all my friends who have tried it.  This is part of the Mediterranean cuisine.  I love making this as much as I love eating it.

Recipe:

In most of the recipes you will find falafel made using only garbanzo beans.  The recipe that I have been using for several years include a combination of green split peas, lentils and garbanzo beans.  I have not tried the one which uses only garbanzo beans hence don't know how different it is from this one.

Split peas – 1 cup

Lentils – 1 cup

Garbanzo beans – 1 cup

Ginger – 2” piece

Garlic – 6 cloves

Green chilies – 1 tablespoon

Chili sauce (optional) – 1 ½ tablespoon

Roasted cumin – 1 teaspoon

Lemon juice – 2 tablespoons

Bread crumbs – 1 cup

Sesame seeds – ½ cup

Warm oil – 1 ½ tablespoon

Salt – to taste

Oil for frying

Baking soda (optional) – a pinch

• Soak split peas, lentils and garbanzo beans overnight.
• Grind the split peas, lentils and garbanzo beans adding ginger, garlic, green chilies, roasted cumin, and salt. 
• Add the chili sauce (I use the Sriracha hot chili sauce), lemon juice, ½ cup of breadcrumbs and baking soda (optional).  Mix.
• Make the round falafel balls and flatten these a bit. 
• Place sesame seeds on a side of the plate and the remaining bread crumbs on other side.  Dip each falafel ball first in sesame seed covering one side, and next in breadcrumbs covering the rest of the falafel.
• Heat oil and deep-fry the falafel balls.  Make sure these are properly cooked from inside, keeping in mind that the lentils take a little longer to cook.

And this is how the Mediterranean platter looks, which apart from Falafel, includes Hummus, Tabouleh, and  Mujadarah, Yogurt Mint Sauce - the items that I blogged about earlier.

This is recipe 30 of 30 :) of my Cooking Marathon and this concludes the cooking-marathon-30-recipes-by-year-end-challenge.  I had a total blast doing this cooking marathon and thanks to all my wonderful friends and family for encouraging me every step throughout this marathon.  Without that, this marathon wouldn't have been so much fun.  I enjoyed the journey as much as the destination!  While doing the cooking marathon, I also learned a bit of photography techniques and few of the pictures also got featured on www.foodgawker.com - the ultimate site in food photography.  Though I have to admit that cooking is a lot easier than photographing those dishes or typing up the blog.  But all in all, it was super fun!  Thanks to all of you friends who have been regularly following the blog.  Thanks to my family for trying out all the recipes :)

And by the way, I had also taken up a challenge to raise $1,000 (33 free eye surgeries) this holiday season, for Sankara Eye Foundation, a non-profit organization working towards eradicating curable blindness in India.  And I am thrilled to announce that I also met that goal today.  Total amount raised so far is $1,183 and counting, which translates to 39 eye surgeries!  Again, thanks to the support of my friends who donated for the cause.  Some of them are anonymous so I really don't know who donated but I truly appreciate all of their support.  Together we made a difference in the lives of 39 needlessly blind people and hence, 39 families.

So what next for this blog?  I don't know.  The purpose for which this blog was set up is served.  But I guess I may still keep it active and post some recipes every now and then.  

As we bid adieu to this decade and Year 2009, I hope that you had a happy and fulfilling decade and wish that the Year 2010 bring you and your loved ones all the Happiness, Joy, Prosperity and Peace.  Have a Very Happy New Year!

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called “Opportunity” and its first chapter is New Year’s Day." - Edith L. Pierce