Culinary Whimses

Passport & Plate - Falafel Croquettes

Ingredients
100g fava beans, soaked overnight
4g fresh dill, parsley, cilantro
2g salt
1g pepper
45g red onion
2g baking powder
45g egg
1g nutmeg
250g steamed, mashed potato

For coating:
Sesame seeds
dried coriander
Nigella seeds
Slivered almonds

For dipping:
100 g yogurt
5 g chopped fresh mint
2 g minced garlic
1 g salt

 

How to prepare this recipe
Stir the dip ingredients and chill.
Finely pulse beans with herbs, nutmeg, salt & pepper, onion and baking powder.
Mix the egg with the potato and fold through the falafel mixture.
Roll into balls, coating in desired seeds.
Deep fry until golden. They will puff up and go perfectly round!

 

The story behind this recipe
My story is a bit... Extreme? But it marks a really personal period of my life. Falafels are a street food that is available round the clock in Cairo, and very cheap. During the Tahrir sit-in in 2011, we had them most of the time. So a while later, I was throwing a party for a friend who had a surgery, after being wounded in the revolution. So I wanted to serve -yep- falafels! Yet wanted them to be posh-ed up a little. I thought they'd either LOVE it or puke it, but gave it a go anyways! Hence, I mixed them with potatoes and they turned up to be a huge hit, I even used the recipe for a competition later.