Falafels with Tzatziki Sauce

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Joe and I had the most fabulous supper tonight. I know, Dear Reader, I say that all the time, but it’s true this time. Really. It was amazing.

A few months ago, I found a recipe for Crockpot Falafels on A Year of Crockpotting. Joe and I tried them, but we made them on the stovetop and fried them in oil. They weren’t so great.

I wanted to make them again, and I decided to bake them instead of frying them on the stovetop. (The crockpot wasn’t an option since it was 4 in the afternoon when I made my brilliant decision.)

I combined a few recipes that I found online, made Joe run to the grocery store for a cucumber and some eggs, and set to work. The results were divine.

We really debated about what to have alongside the falafels since we didn’t want to make sandwiches out of them. We ended up having a beautiful little salad of spring mix, crumbled feta cheese, black olives, and Chef Tim’s Sweet Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing. The salad alone was amazing and wonderful, and with the falafels, it was a Mediterranean meal for the gods.

Baked Falafels

Ingredients:

• 1 pound of dried chick peas – You have to soak these over night, rinse them, then boil them for an hour or so before using them. You could also use canned chick peas, but dried ones are so much better that there’s not even a comparison. Go with the dried ones.
• 2 cups or so of the water that you boiled the chick peas in
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 or 3 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup or so of plain bread crumbs

Instructions:

1. Saute the onions and garlic until they are crisp tender.
2. Combine everything except the water and breadcrumbs in your blender, reserving about half of the onion mixture and a few handfuls of the chick peas in a small bowl.
3. Pulse the ingredients in the blender until the mixture is smooth. You may need to add water to thin the mixture enough that your blender can process it. Add it a little at a time. If you add too much water, you’ll ruin the chick pea mixture.
4. Once the mixture is smooth and well blended, remove most of it from the blender. Add in the reserved onions, garlic, and chick peas, and pulse until just barely chopped. Add to the smooth mixture. (I added this step in to give the batter a nice texture.)
5. Add breadcrumbs to the batter 1/4 cup at a time, until the batter is thick enough to hold its shape when formed into a ball.
6. Using a cookie scoop, form golfball-sized mounds of dough in a shallow baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until deep golden brown. Serve with tzatiki sauce.

Tzatziki Sauce

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces sour cream
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1-2 tablespoons Pampered Chef Dill Mix
• 3 cloves garlic, pressed
• 1 medium cucumber, grated

Instructions:

1. After grating the cucumber, press out the excess moisture by lining a colander with a paper towel, putting in the grated cucumber, and then topping with another paper towel. Squeeze the cucumber into the colander to push out the excess water. Do this several times (but not so hard that the cucumber turns into pulp). This will prevent your final sauce from being diluted and runny.
2. Mix everything together in a medium bowl.
3. Cover and refrigerate for an hour or so before serving.

A side note – Falafels are the most inexpensive entree I can imagine. We paid 88 cents for the bag of chick peas, and it yields about 28 falafels. Even with all of the other ingredients, they cost just a few cents a piece.

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