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When we were living in Hannover, I became a falafel addict. Might not sound typically German, but there’s a large Turkish population in Germany, and you can buy inexpensive, fresh, delicious falafel (as well as other yummy treats) at almost any corner. The guys at my imbiss (fast food joint) knew my falafel order by heart.

You can get excellent falafel in Charlotte (try Zeitouni), but I miss being able to walk across the street and get it, so I often make it at home. Box mixes are actually pretty good (Far East has a good one) but I’d always wanted to try making them from scratch.

So what’s in there? Dried, soaked (uncooked) chickpeas, onion, parsley, spices.

How hard was it? Well, if you’ve made from-the-box falafel before, it’s really not that hard, but it does require more planning and more cleanup. Big bonus if you have trouble with gluten is that making them from scratch requires no flour, which most mixes have. I find the difficult part is that I want to make all the fixin’s, too, which also take time—yogurt sauce, tahini sauce, chopped veggies.

Since I spent most of my energies on the falafel, I put my daughter to work on the yogurt sauce (she loves this) and dressed the veggies with just a little lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

This time I think my husband was right: I really DID use every dish in the house.

Results: delicious. Was it worth making from scratch? I have to say that, while I loved them would make them again, the box-mix kind are a close second.

Bittman’s recipe here.

Next on my list: making harissa from scratch, and Egyptian falafel. They’re green!

For more of my posts on cooking and food, click here.

You’re going to think all we eat are beans around here. Contrary to squeaks from the peanut gallery, it isn’t true. But beans are what I’m into exploring these days.

This was another recipe from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Really loving that book. The actual title of the recipe is “Baked Chickpeas with Fresh Cheese,” but I didn’t think that did it justice.

Here’s before baking:

You make it with a spicy Indian-style tomato sauce and coconut milk (or cream) and crumbled cheese. I subbed feta for the Indian cheese since I knew it would be a wild goose chase to find it. Sounds a little strange but it was so so good.

Here it is after baking:

We ate it with rice. There were no leftovers. However, while I was cooking it, I got scared I wasn’t going to like it. The smells and flavors just didn’t seem to work together until the last minute, when everything clicked into place, and boy I’m getting hungry just thinking about it right now.

Anyone know the etiquette for posting recipes from cookbooks? I did ask permission for the last one I posted, but I don’t feel right posting a bunch. Here’s a version of this recipe here.  And oddly you can find the page on google books here, but isn’t that kind of weird? Shouldn’t you have to buy it as an e-book? It would make a great e-book since it’s sooooo huge, but the last time I checked it wasn’t available that way.

If you enjoyed this post, you may want to see the one about Jamaican-Style Baked Rice and Kidney Beans from the same cookbook.

1 Comments on Spicy Baked Chickpeas with Cheese, last added: 5/25/2011