[Music playing]
[Ariel Rosenthal] Hi, my name is Ariel. Ariel Rosenthal, and this is my place.
It's called Falafel Hakosem.
In English that means "the magician."
To make falafel, we use chickpeas.
Then we use some garlic....
....onions and some fresh spices.
And then we use, as well, some fresh coriander and basil.
This is the first step.
Beautiful, huh?
Ok, this is the first step.
The second step!
This is our own special spices. We have cumin, we have sesame, we have salt inside.
We put a little bit.
We have to make a lot of this so..... this is actually the falafel.
And, it's like... We make it fresh every 45 minutes, so it's light.
If it stays longer, it becomes, like, uh, stones.
They become more heavier.
So the more fresh you make it, and with the fresh herbs we use, the lighter and crispier it comes out.
It's smooth on the inside and crispy on the outside.
The first step, is to take a tasty pita.
And we have a special oven, it's a steam oven, that keeps the pita steamed.
[Chef Einav Gefen] The pita itself is different. It's much healthier. [Chef Ariel] Yes.
This pita, itself, it's handmade,
and it's very low-tech pita. We make it with pans, one by one.
So it's like, uhh, this is how they used to make pita 100 years ago
before all of the ovens and technology came.
[Chef Einav Gefen] It also causes it to be much fluffier. [Ariel Rosenthal] Much fluffier, yes.
And then, you can also put a small percentage of water, and it's like you're eating a little cloud.
[Chef Einav Gefen] Yes, it is. [Ariel Rosenthal] Like a souffle.
Ok, so I think all over the world, people use bread like pizza or for a sandwich,
and I think pita bread is genius because you can actually fill this pita bread pocket with whatever you want.
Then you can eat it, like, standing along in the street.
So I think it's really a masterpiece product,
because you have the bread, inside stuff filled things. Then you eat it! You eat the whole package.
It's like you get a present and you eat also the wrap.
OK, so now we will make the falafel. So first of all we take a hummus.
Of course, this is homemade hummus.
Then we put some spice if you like.
[Chef Einav Gefen] Is that zhug? [Ariel Rosenthal] Yes, zhug is a very spicy paste.
This is smashed garlic. So, just garlic and olive oil.
[Chef Einav Gefen] So this is not really a date food. [Ariel Rosenthal] Or if both of the dates eat the garlic, you can have this on a date. [Chef Einav Gefen laughing]
[Ariel Rosenthal] Our famous eggplant, aubergine.....
Then we put 3 falafel balls first of all.
[Chef Einav Gefen] So your falafel... it's a chickpea-based falafel.
[Ariel Rosenthal] The falafel is 100% made of chickpeas, then we put fresh garlic, fresh onions, fresh basil and coriander.
And then we put, of course, I put some spices like salt, cumin... we put uh, sesame...
[Speaking Israeli] It's the Black Sesame.
And a few more top secret things. [laughs]
So then I put fresh salads, we put cabbage....
We put a pickle... this is salted pickles.....
We put onion, and some basil.
On the top of everything, we put tahini. Tahini is made out of sesame:
Sesame, lemon and water.
Then we put the second step, like a building, we put two more, and then again: salad, cabbage.....
....pickles, onion, and basil....
And then we put, once again, tahini from upstairs.
The Iraqis... in Iraq they call with "amba." It's made out of mango. It's a spicy mango.
Pickled mango, yes. It's cooked with spices.
And if you want to put just a little bit.
So, thank you for coming.
This is for you!
I think that everything you make, whether it's a Michelin restaurant or street food....
I think you can make it top notch: top ingredients you use, top quality.
So we use the best ingredients we can find in the world.
The chickpeas, the sesame, the olive oil... we bring it out of different places to reach the best quality ingredients.
And then how you make it. We use sunflower oil.
We change it everyday.
The falafel we make 60 times a day. The pita bread, we get it 4 times a day.
The hummus we're making every 2 hours.
So if you ask about the finest falafel, it's about the ingredients, the freshness and how we make it.
I think when you eat the falafel and the pita bread, first of all it's very healthy, but it's also very tasty because you have....
the warmth (because the falafel ball is very hot)....
So you have you have the warmth, then you have the pita bread,
then you have the salad, then you have the tahini and the spices...
I think it's really a magic bite.
I truly think that not so many dishes around the world can have this... So many flavors and textures in one bite.
I think it's magic. It's a miracle.
Now we'll do a "sabraha."
Now a sabraha, to actually make it... it's a kind of hummus but we make it on the spot.
So it's hot chickpeas, tahini, cumin, lemon, and olive oil.
People eat sabraha normally for breakfast, because it's very fresh. It's not so heavy.
Because, uh, we make it on the spot, so it's like...it's a bit fluffy.
And I think also it's chickpeas, it's tahini... it's only healthy...it's olive oil.
You have the chickpeas, you have the sesame tahini, you have olive oil, you have lemon... what can be bad? It's just good!
So let's make the first step. We use small chickpeas, hot, really well cooked.
These chickpeas are cooked for 3 - 4 hours, ok?
We take out the water from the chickpeas. By the way, the water of the chickpeas is also very healthy.
You can make out of it desserts, bread and everything ...aqua faba.... ok.
So we have the chickpeas. Then we put some tahini. Tahini is made out of sesame.
And then I put a bit of spicy.
Like I said it's a Yemenese spicy... zhug.
I put my secret ingredients, but I will tell you the secret: it's cumin and salt.
Ok, so we put some cumin and salt inside.
And... we put some fresh lemon.
Some olive oil.
Now we smash it.
We smash it but not so much.
So, now.... To make it also a morning dish, we add some boiled egg.....
We put some olive oil....
And some lemon over the top.
And then we put some parsley.
And, all we have to do now....
is just take a spoon, pick up a plate.....
Thank you, chef! Thank you for coming!
[Chef Einav Gefen] Thank you, Chef! [Chef Ariel] Let's have some breakfast!