With salad, hummus and pita bread - you can make tasty & healthy evening snack or meal using Falafel. I have used ready-made brown pita bread (available at sugardough, Aundh, Pune). You may want to bake it on your own if you're comfortable.
Ingredients for Falafel balls
- 2.5 cups chickpeas soaked overnight, and cooked in the pressure cooker.
- 2 tbsp Tahini
- 1 tbsp green chillies- coarse paste, add more if you like it spicy
- 1 tbsp cumin seeds
- 3 tbsp finely chopped coriander
- 4-5 cloves finely chopped (or minced) garlic
- 1 large finely chopped onion
- 2 tbsp maida/all purpose floor
- Salt as per taste.
- Oil - to fry. I used little oil in appe patra as we don't like deep fried stuff much.
Ingredients for the dish
- Pita bread/pockets - 3 to 4.
- 1 large bowl of Hummus
- 1 large onion finely chopped
- 2 tomatoes finely chopped.
- Lettuce or salad leaves broken roughly.
- Green mint (pudina) chutney/dip (Blend mint, green chillies and little coriander in a blender to make thick dip/chutney, and mix with lemon juice & salt as per taste).
Procedure
Mash the cooked chickpeas with potato masher so as to make coarse paste of the chickpeas. Add chopped onion, chillies, cumin seeds, Tahini, chopped garlic and all the Falafel ingredients. Add maida/all purpose floor and salt and knead it and make equal sized balls. If you plan to fry them, heat oil in a deep frying pan while you get these balls ready. Otherwise, grease appe patra with little oil and put all those Falafel balls there and add little oil on both sides till the balls are golden brown & crisp. In deep frying, fry balls in heated oil till they are golden brown & crisp. Keep these Falafel balls aside, use tissue paper if you need to drain excess oil.
Keep these balls, pita bread, salad, hummus and mint dip/chutney ready.
Now, cut open pita pockets into two halves. You may want o warm pita bread before you use it. Spread hummus generously inside the pita pocket to make a thick coat of hummus. Spread a bit of mint dip as well, add more if you like it spicy. Add some chopped onion & tomatoes. Press 2 or more Falafel balls lightly in the pita pocket and top it it with some more hummus and mint dip. Finish it off with salad/lettuce leaves as you see in the photo. Serve this with some salad/lettuce , hummus and mint dip. It is best served when the Falafel balls are still hot and crispy. Relish the flavours and enjoy!
Once you get your Falafel & Hummus right, you would be hooked on to this dish. And though the photos don't really do the justice to this dish, let me assure you that the taste is amazing!
