Sean's Falafel and Cucumber Sauce Recipe

Directions

In a small bowl combine yogurt, cucumber, dill, salt, pepper and mayonnaise and mix well. Chill for at least 30 minutes.
In a large bowl mash chickpeas until thick and pasty; don't use a blender, as the consistency will be too thin. In a blender, process onion, parsley and garlic until smooth. Stir into mashed chickpeas.
In a small bowl combine egg, cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice and baking powder. Stir into chickpea mixture along with olive oil. Slowly add bread crumbs until mixture is not sticky but will hold together; add more or less bread crumbs, as needed. Form 8 balls and then flatten into patties.
Heat 1 inch of oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry patties in hot oil until brown on both sides. Serve two falafels in each pita half topped with chopped tomatoes and cucumber sauce.

Reviews (782)

806

HEAVENSNT86

May. 30, 2006

"So yummy and very easy to make! Instead of frying, I baked them in the oven. Preheat the oven at 400 degrees F. Spray the baking sheet and then the falafels with vegetable oil cooking spray. BAke 10 m..." See moreinutes, flip and spray again, then another 10 minutes. Then broil each side for 2 minutes. So good and much healthier! Thanks!"

375

muslim mom

Sep. 17, 2006

"I like the fact that this uses canned chickpeas.. as it's easy to prepare. However, both times I've made it, the falafels have fallen apart in the oil. I recommend doing a test falafel... and if it f..." See morealls apart, just add another egg. I would use very little bread crumbs, if any. Another scary problem is that the baking powder (which may be a typo.. as every other falafel recipe I know uses baking soda), cause the oil to bubble up/foam... one batch it foamed over creating a fire hazard on my stove. As for the sauce, I didn't use the dill, but I added two cloves of finely chopped garlic. The second time I left out the mayo and didn't miss it at all. All in all, this is a good base... but be wary of the falling apart and foaming issues."

267

MALANDIS

Mar. 17, 2004

"Wonderful recipe! I didn't have any coriander or enough parsley, but it still turned out great. I suggest, as others have, that you make the cucumber sauce first so that the flavors can mix well..." See more. The sauce tasted great, but, a tad too sweet for me. So, I added in some more salt to even it out. Plan on using the sauce for salads in the future! I mashed the chickpeas without a blender, as the recipe says, and the texture was nice. This is really laborious, so if you're short on time, just use a blender on a gentle setting. I also made the following preparation changes: 1) After forming the falafel balls, I covered them in bread crumbs. This creates a nice texture. Form the patties after this. 2) To make less fatty, baked the falafel patties in an oven instead of deep frying. I covered an oven pan with aluminum foil (easy cleanup!) then very lightly greased it with olive oil. Bake the patties at 425F for 20 minutes then turn over and baked for another 8-10 minutes. They brown well and turn out great. Enjoy!"

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