Rami Okasha rustled up a taste of Egypt for World Food Day. Here he gives his recipe for Falafel and makes it sound very simple. That’s Rami in the picture on the right busy dishing up to the stream of people arriving for lunch at Out of the Blue Drill Hall (Ellie and Maka are on the left).
Felafel
You can use either chickpeas (Turkish, Israeli) or broad beans (Egyptian).
250g dried chickpeas or beans
1 medium onion
3 cloves of garlic
1 large bunch parsley
1tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp each of ground cinnamon, caraway, fennel, black pepper
1 tsp salt
3 tablespoon plan flour
Soak the chickpeas overnight, covered by about 2-3 inches of water. Next day, drain well and put in a food processor and blend the chickpeas with the garlic and salt. Transfer to a bowl.
Finely chop the onion and process with the spices and half the herbs, stalks removed. Add to the chickpeas. Finely chop the remaining herbs. Sprinkle flour and mix. Chill for an hour. Then form into small balls.
Line a baking tray with baking parchment. Space the balls so they don’t touch. Bake at 200C for 20-30 minutes. Halfway through, shake the tins so the felafel roll about.
Serve with hummus, harissa & garlic yoghurt in a pitta bread.
Flashback to 2006: Rami serving lunch at Leith Open Space second multicultural discussion event
Editor’s note: Rami by the way is a founder member of Leith Open Space and we seem to remember he was the one who first had the great idea of inviting people to bring multicultural dishes to our first Open Space event very nearly six years ago.