Falafel

Falafel Right-Click Select:  Open Link in NEW TAB Use Magnifier Tool to ENLARGE ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT Resetting the body-clock was a disaster so far ... woke at 3am, was up until 11pm.  Crashed. But then I slept for 13 hours straight.  WTF?  Who sleeps that long???  And who gets up after 13 hours of sleep, feeling sleepy and tired??   Think I liked it better when I as semi 'manic' or something, poring over the news obsessively.  lol Falafel cooking went somewhat better than the planned body-clock reset.  But it began as a disaster.  Rolled home-made falafel mix into small dessert-spoon sized balls, flattened them a little, & arranged them on a tray for a quick chill before frying.  Easier for the inexperienced falafel cook without the requisite falafel scooping gadget. All good ... until I threw some falafel into the oil.  Not hot enough, even after something like 8 minutes heating.  Had to fish it out. Might need some wooden skewers for oil testing.  Apparently, if the oil bubbles around skewer, it's good to go.  Got that off watching what I call 'food porn,' recently. Falafel frying attempt in hot oil:  bubbling.  Bubbling big time.  Seemed OK.  Bubbling's good, right?   Well, it looked like it was all good ... until I tried to fish out a falafel balls to see how the frying process was going.  The f*%$ing falafel balls DISINTEGRATED!!!!!!!!!!!!! Fished out a couple of remaining 'stumps' of falafel and got to quickly remixing and reforming the balls, with a small amount of plain flour. The balls that incorporated some flour didn't fall apart and fried up OK.  But I'm not entirely happy with the texture. The mix I made is just a little too mushy for my taste and needs to be a little more coarse next time.  As I don't really know what I'm doing, how coarse/textured will depend on experimenting to see what I can get away with in terms of falafel balls that don't fall apart. I'm working with tinned chickpeas, so maybe that's where the problem lies.  As in, the chickpeas would probably be waterlogged compared to those traditionally used, starting from scratch with dried chickpeas and soaking them overnight or whatever they do. The lot I mixed up didn't need additional water for the same reason, so that was pointless and counter-productive for me.  After frying off a trial batch of falafel balls remixed with flour, I've had to then drain the oil through a fine sieve to fish out the residue.  Annoying.  Should have only tested with one, instead of tossing in several.  General falafel mix: Chickpeas, x3 cans (drain & rinse) Onion, x2 medium garlic, x5-6 cloves coriander, x1 bunch parsley, half bunch salt cumin coriander powder chilli powder cinnamon powder (small amount) baking powder, 1 tsp 2 slices fresh crumbed bread (food processor) plain flour The spices were on a 'whatever' basis ... whatever I think will taste good.  Can taste the mix to make sure there's enough salt & spices.  Other spices can go in there, as well.  But the above is enough for me. Think I might need to prepare this on a few consecutive days to get the feel for what will work best. Final result wasn't too bad, but I need to maybe take it easy with the degree of food-processing next time. Update Made up a batch of dry chickpeas, soaked overnight. Some panic thinking there's no way the mix was going to adhere as it seemed too crumbly.  Put in a small amount of flour and tested a batch that kind of just adhered.   Cooked up really well.  No problem with falling apart. The texture is very nice.  Much better than the canned chickpeas version. Falafel - Version #2