Recipes - Hummus & Falafel

I cook and bake a lot by the standards of a normal working person, pretty much every single day I cook at minimum, a proper dinner meal from scratch (no tinned or bottled sauces, no ready prepared veg and certainly no ready-meals) and I try not to make the same thing too often. I cook simple food, but I take as with my work, the long way round, putting a lot of time and attention into quality of ingredients and correct procedure. I don't believe in shortcuts and modern convenience, and it makes all the difference, so looking at this, I am very surprised at how often I get requests for my recipes. After a bit of internal debate I decided that it's not too odd to post recipes here among the rest of my public life.

Please keep in mind that I am a very amateur cook and baker. I also cook and bake a lot by eye - i.e. I add an ingredient until it looks right so I often can't give exact proportions of things like spices. Just do as I do, add a bit, try it, add a bit more.

I adore Middle-Eastern food and these two recipes are some of my favourite. I originally found them more than a decade ago on a little plain text blog of a lady somewhere in the Middle-east trying to document her grandmother's recipes before they were lost. They are very simple, but quite long winded. Both of them I tend to make over a number of days allowing time for the flavours to mature before carrying on.

Both Hummus and Falafel have the same base, raw soaked chickpeas. This is probably the most important part of the whole thing. Get dried chickpeas and soak them until they start fermenting very slightly. There should be small bubbles forming on top of the water. This usually takes about two days but may take a little longer if it is cold. Once the chickpeas have soaked/fermented sufficiently, rinse them well in cool water and drain all the water off.

DO NOT cook the chickpeas or use tinned chickpeas, you will land up with tasteless mush. 

I use a grinding attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer to grind the chickpeas for both these recipes, then I move the ground chickpeas into my food processor which chops and blends at the same time. I don't recommend a blender as these mixtures are very thick and can damage your blender's motor. 

Hummus

1kg Chickpeas (long soaked as per previous instructions)

+-750ml Olive oil or sesame oil
Garlic (lots - at least a full head) chopped
2tbs Tahina
Ground cumin, Paprika, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste
dried chilli if you would like a spicy one.

Grind chickpeas then move to food processor and add the garlic - don't be shy with the garlic, it is hard to have too much!
Put food processor on Med/High speed (#2 of 3 on mine) and add oil in a steady stream while it is processing the mixture. Continue the processing, stopping every so often to mix in the bits that stick to the sides until it is the consistency and smoothness that you like. You may also need to add more oil to the mixture if you prefer it more liquid as I like mine quite firm.
Do not add water instead of oil.
Decant the mixture into a large bowl and mix in the tahina, cumin, paprika, lemon, salt and pepper. Add a little of the seasonings at a time and let it rest for about 30 - 60 minutes between addition for the flavours to develop before trying it.
*note: It needs more salt than you may expect. Use a high quality course or flake salt (ground of course) it really does make a difference!

The flavours do vary a lot and you may not get a flavour that is perfect for you on your first try, the best way to experiment is to either start with a small batch (1/4 of the quantities of this one ) or make the base - chickpeas ground with olive oil and then divide it into smaller batches and try different quantities of the flavours in each. This makes a lot of hummus - probably close to 2l

Falaffel

1kg ground Chickpeas (long soaked as per previous instruction)
2 large finely chopped Onions (I like red onions)
garlic - lots
2 bunches fresh parsley
1 bunch fresh coriander
Salt and pepper to taste

Grind chickpeas then move to food processor, add onion, garlic, parsley, coriander, salt and pepper.
Process until you have a dry and fine but still chunky mixture (bits of chickpea should be about 2mm in size - it should look and feel a bit like course beach sand )
Decant the mixture into a bowl, cover with cling wrap and put into the fridge overnight to mature.
Remove from the fridge and mix well.
Using two desert spoons or your hands, take small quantities of the dough and make balls about 1.5" in diameter  (make sure that the dough is heavily compressed otherwise it will fall apart in the pan, and then flatten them slightly.
Put enough oil in a deep pan to cover the balls and pre-heat it to a med/high heat
Fry the balls a few at a time until they are golden brown and slightly crispy on the outside. I cook them for about 1.5 minutes on each side.
Remove from the oil and drain onto kitchen towel.

Notes:
Try one first and break it open to check that your heat is correct - also a good time to check that you are happy with the seasoning as you can add more salt,pepper, or anything else you may like now before you do the whole lot.
You may need to alter the heat after your first falafel as all stoves are different.
If your heat is too high, they will cook too quickly on the outside and still be raw on the inside.
If your heat is too low, they will not seal properly and will suck up oil (yuck!)
If your falafel fall apart while cooking, you are not compressing the dough enough while making the balls, or your dough is not fine enough, you will not need to add egg, bread or any other binding agent.  I squish them between two desert spoons which makes the right size and shape for me.

It is also nice to make them from 50% chickpeas and 50% lentils for a different flavour and then serve with a tomato relish instead of traditional tzatziki.

This makes enough to comfortably feed about 6 people.