My theme for this week is Lebanese cuisine. Of course, the first few dishes that come to mind are pita bread, hummus and falafel. I was wondering if it would be too cliche to make these dishes for this theme but then I figured it is unbelievable that I still don’t have these classic recipes on my blog. So I am posting recipes for three ingredients in a pita sandwich – falafel, pita bread and labneh. Get them together and it will be pure bliss. Even the husband, who does not experiment much with food, loved this. So you surely don’t need a bigger proof of the deliciousness of this awesome meal.

Falafel is a nice balance between guilt and pleasure. It is a chickpea based dish and so good on the protein front but at the same time, it is deep fried and makes you a little guilty if you are trying to eat healthy / lose weight. You can bake them too but this is the first time I am making these and so I did not want to risk that with the family. I am researching on getting an equally delicious baked version and will update this post soon in that regard. My recipe, as usual, is more spicy and has curry powder instead of paprika and cayenne to make it more favorable to the husband and daughter. Now, on to the recipe –

Makes 20-25 falafels

Recipe adapted from here

WHAT WE NEED

Chickpeas                 1/2 cup

Onion, small            1

Garlic cloves            2

Coriander leaves    2-3 sprigs

Green chilly             1

Curry powder          1 tsp

Red chilly powder   1/2 tsp

Sesame seeds           2 tsp

Cumin seeds             1 tsp

Salt

Oil for deep frying

 

WHAT TO DO

• Soak the chickpeas in a large bowl of water and set it aside for around 6 hours or overnight
• Drain the water from the chickpeas
• Take all the ingredients, except oil, in a food processor or blender and blend it to a thick paste
• If you find it tough to blend then add few teaspoons of water but ensure that the thick paste is formed after blending
• Heat the oil for deep frying
• Transfer the paste to a bowl and pinch out some dough the size of a small lemon
• Roll the piece of dough into a small ball and set it aside
• Continue to form small balls with the rest of the dough
• Once the oil is sufficiently heated, drop few balls of dough into it and reduce the flame to low
• Fry till they turn golden brown
• Repeat the same procedure to fry all the dough balls
• Enjoy it with pita and hummus / labneh!

For a pita sandwich, divide a pita bread into two and open each half into a pocket. Apply some labneh or hummus inside the pita and fill it with falafel, tomato and cucumber slices.

This is my post for the Blogging Marathon under the theme, Lebanese Cuisine.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this BM