- [Babish] This episode is sponsored by Thrive Market,
an online membership based market
that makes healthy living easy and affordable.
They have everything from basic and specialty grocery items
to nontoxic home products
and it all comes in eco-friendly packaging.
You choose your membership type
one month at a time or 12 months.
I went with the 12 month
because it comes down to $5 a month.
Join today to get $20 off your first order and a free gift.
The link is in the video description.
Now, let's get down to basics.
(fun music)
All right, so today we're making both falafel and hummus
for both of which we're going to need
some dried garbanzo beans.
Just like most kinds of beans,
you're gonna get better mileage out of the dried stuff
than the canned stuff.
You can definitely make hummus out of canned garbanzo beans
but don't even try to make falafel.
When you soak them,
you wanna soak them in four times their weight of water.
That is I have eight ounces of garbanzo beans here
that I'm gonna soak in 32 ounces of water.
It's not gonna smell so great
but it's going to have the perfect texture for falafel
but first, we're going to whip up some hummus
dropping 12 ounces of soaked beans in some water,
covering and boiling for two hours.
That's why you can use canned garbanzo beans to make hummus
because they're wildly overcooked.
You know that your garbanzo beans are ready
when you can squish them between your fingers
at great peril of your fingers, ow.
Anyway, we're gonna drain these little suckers,
rinse them and allow them to cool off a bit
before we puree them by virtue of a food processor.
Simply dump in your soaked and cooked chickpeas
as they're sometimes called
along with two cloves of garlic roughly chopped.
We're gonna blitz that up for about 30 seconds
scraping down the sides of the bowl
until relatively smooth and homogenous
then we're adding the squeezed juice of one large lemon,
one half cup of extra virgin olive oil
and a third of a cup tahini,
an extremely flavorful sesame seed puree
then while everybody's processing,
we're gonna slowly stream in between a quarter
to a third of a cup of ice water
continuing to allow the mixture to process
for three to five minutes
scraping down the sides of the bowl
until it is smooth and creamy
and has an almost hummus like texture.
Be sure to season with plenty of kosher salt
and you've got yourself a delicious condiment
that will last four to five days in the fridge.
Next up, we're gonna make a simple lemon tahini sauce
to serve with our falafel.
In a small bowl,
we are combining a half cup of tahini obviously,
a quarter cup of lemon juice obviously,
one clove of garlic either pressed through a garlic press
or minced, a half teaspoon of freshly ground cumin
and a generous pinch of kosher salt to taste.
Tiny whisk to combine
and we want this sauce to be extremely drizzleable
so feel free to add some ice water
to thin it out if necessary.
Give it a taste
and dream about how lovely it would be on falafel.
More on that after the break and we're back.
As you can see before me,
I have a selection of fresh dill, parsley and mint,
all of which I'm going to very finely chop.
Maybe two to three tablespoons worth of dill and mint
and a quarter cup of freshly chopped parsley.
Once Jess has lined up the shot
and she gives you the green light,
go ahead and scoop 'em up.
That looked pro.
I think that was worth it.
Set this aside and then it's time to toast our spices.
Into a small fry pan goes about a tablespoon of cumin seeds,
a tablespoon of coriander seeds
and a quarter teaspoon of Aleppo pepper
that we're gonna toast over medium heat
tossing occasionally making sure that they do not smoke
but become lovely and fragrant.
Once toasted, we just gotta dump 'em out,
let 'em cool and grind 'em up.
If you're using pre-ground spices,
simply substitute with two teaspoons of ground cumin
and one and a half teaspoons of ground coriander.
Freshly ground spices are a pain in the ass but preferable
because of their brighter, more floral flavors
which are gonna translate really nicely
in such a relatively simple dish.
Make sure you run them through a fine mesh sieve
to catch any errant particles
that might otherwise break a tooth and with that,
we are finally ready to break out the food processor again
into which we are gonna deposit roughly one pound
of our soaked chickpeas, one small onion roughly chopped
and two cloves of garlic roughly chopped.
Pulse everybody together until everybody is roughly chopped
then of course, we're gonna scrape down the sides
of the food processor bowl
and add all of our freshly chopped herbs
along with the zest of one small lemon
for a bit of zesty lemon flavor.
One teaspoon of baking powder.
That should add some lightness to our bowls.
A generous pinch of kosher salt
and a few big twists of freshly ground black pepper.
Go ahead and process all that together.
Don't forget your freshly ground spices.
Go ahead and process all of that together
until you have a pebbly chunky kind of paste.
This is your falafel dough batter.
I'm not really sure what this stuff is called.
Let me know in the comments.
I don't feel like Googling it.
Next up, it's time to shape.
There are two classic shapes for falafel.
Probably the most familiar, the perfectly round falafel ball
or better suited for baking or pan frying,
there's the falafel patty which gets its name
from the fact that it is shaped like a patty.
No matter what shape you you shape them,
these guys can be covered and fridged overnight
but no matter what,
you wanna fridge them for at least a half hour
before cooking to ensure structural integrity.
Now, let's go over the different means
by which to make falafel.
Probably the healthiest
and most hands-off of which is baking
for which we went to generously oil a rimmed baking sheet
with vegetable oil, place our patties overtop
and likewise, generously oil them
so they get a nice brown crust
when they head into a 375 degree Fahrenheit oven,
350 with convection for 15 to 20 minutes
being flipped halfway through cooking.
As you can see, this is a relatively messy sticky process
that doesn't really end up
giving you a very good end product.
It might be a bit healthier but as with all things,
it's way better when fried.
So we are covering the bottom of a medium saute pan
with vegetable oil
dropping in our falafel patties once the oil is shimmering
and frying to crispy golden completion
about two to three minutes per side.
Is this going to save you any calories versus deep frying?
No.
Is it a lot easier and a lot less scary than deep frying?
Yes.
Is it much harder than baking?
Debatable.
Does it end up crispier and tastier than baking?
Yes.
Is it less healthy than baking?
Negligibly.
Will I ever run out of questions to ask myself?
Yeah.
So lastly, we're moving on to deep frying.
A medium best suited for the ball.
We're frying these at 325 degrees Fahrenheit
for four to five minutes.
A low enough temperature where the falafel will cook through
but also develop a deep golden brown crust.
Retrieve and drain on paper towels before serving hot
with your contrastingly cold hummus.
We wanna sort of make a bed of hummus
with a crater in the center
for any lovely number of hummus accoutrement
like roasted red peppers, olives, chicken
or just more garbanzo beans.
If you've got any sumac, now's the time to break it out.
It looks pretty and it's light kind of citrusy flavor
plays beautifully with hummus
then we just gotta stack our falafel around the crater,
make it look all nice and symmetrical if you're like me
and that's something that you really deeply care about.
Optionally, drizzle with our beautiful tahini sauce.
Once again, looks nice, tastes good
then maybe hit it with some roughly chopped parsley
and some more sumac
and because this recipe begins and ends with olive oil,
some more olive oil.
And there you have it,
homemade falafel with homemade hummus,
a dish that tastes as good as it looks
even if you don't look super tasty while tasting it.
Thanks again to Thrive Market for sponsoring this episode.
Thrive Market is where you can find thousands
of the highest quality and sustainable products
in grocery, supplements, home and more.
They make it easy to shop by diets and values
like Fair Trade Certified, non-GMO, keto, paleo and more.
If you're concerned about the environmental effects
of having your groceries delivered,
Thrive Market has you covered.
Your package will be delivered
with carbon neutral shipping methods
from their zero waste warehouses.
Head to the link in the video description,
thrivemarket.com/bingingwithbabish
to sign up for a Thrive Market membership.
You'll get $20 off your first order
and a free gift when you join today.
(calm music)