Kitchen tricks for the home cook
Chef Gareth Granville shares some of his favorite tricks in the kitchen to elevate your cooking at home. He starts with an easy Falafel that will get your kids eating their veggies.
Falafel Recipe
Falafel is a very simple, delicious and healthy and delicious food. It can be served in a salad, in a pita or on a flatbread and it can comprise an entire meal, or be served as a snack.
When I made Falafel for my nephew, he went crazy for them, which was great because he was 3 1/2 years old and sometimes hard to feed. So, falafel is a great medium for getting plenty of healthy vegetables into kids’ diet. Never mind that, though, it’s a delicious food for us grown-ups, too.
The following recipe is a basic outline. The specifics of how to serve them are entirely up to you. I compare it to how everybody has a favourite way of eating a hamburger – the same goes for Falafel.
What you’ll need:
• About 3 cups of dried chickpeas, soaked overnight in water.
• The juice of 1 lemon
• 2 cups of olive oil
• Salt, to taste
• A handful of roughly chopped herbs (your choice which ones, but I suggest parsley, mint and cilantro).
• A small bunch of spring onions or one white onion, roughly chopped
• A food processor
• A deep fat fryer or a saucepan with 3 inches of oil
Method:
Place chickpeas, herbs and onions in your food processor and turn on the machine.
As the mix gets working and with the machine running, add half the lemon juice and some salt.
Slowly add olive oil to the mix. You may not need it all; just enough to smooth the mix out a little.
Taste the mix and adjust seasoning accordingly. Also, with a spoon, an ice cream scoop or just your hands, check to see if the mix holds together when you shape it into a ball.
Heat your oil to 350º
Form bite-sized balls with the chickpea mix and fry them in the oil until golden brown – about 3 or 4 minutes. Drain them on paper towels.
Serve your falafel with your choice of sauces and salad ingredients. I generally serve them on pita bread with Hummus, Tahini, seasoned yoghurt, a spicy tomato sauce and lots of salad. Cole-slaw is also a good idea, but feel free to experiment. Falafel also makes a great meat-substitute in many Mexican dishes.
Enjoy!
You can follow Chef Gareth on Twitter: @garethgranville
