falafel fail?

Fail may be a strong word... Let's just say it wasn't a complete disaster. It looked like a hot mess, and I didn't particularly like it, but Eric liked it and ate both his and most of mine.

 

Here's the story...

 

Found a recipe on Pinterest for Jamie Oliver's 15 Minute Falafel Wraps and thought we would give it a shot. How hard could it be? It said it only took 15 minutes so I was all sorts of excited for a quick, tasty meal.

 

We didn't follow the recipe exactly but I don't particularly think that made that much of a difference. It wasn't that anything tasted bad, it just looked unappealing. Eric stopped at the store to get what we needed on his way home but couldn't find harissa (which now that I google it, we could have probably just made ourselves with spices we have at home).

 

As I write this, and look over the actual recipe, I am starting to wonder where the hell my head was at when we were making this. Eric had said something to me when I forgot to put the lemon zest in about me being out of it or not being able to follow directions and clearly he was right.

 

Below is the complete directions. I am just pasting them in here so that I can highlight the multiple fails I made here...

 

Drain the beans and chickpeas and put them into the processor • Finely grate in the lemon zest, then add a pinch of salt and pepper, the harissa, allspice, flour and coriander stalks (reserving the leaves) • Blitz until smooth, scraping down the sides of the processor if needed • Scrape out the mixture and use clean, wet hands to quickly divide and shape it into 8 patties about 1.5cm thick • Put 1 tablespoon of oil into the frying pan and add the falafels, turning when golden and crisp

Rip the seeds and stalks out of the peppers, tear each one into bite-sized chunks and put on the griddle pan with the trimmed and halved spring onions and a pinch of salt and pepper, turning when charred • Put the tomatoes, chilli and half the coriander leaves into the processor • Squash in the unpeeled garlic through a garlic crusher, squeeze in the lime juice, whiz until fine, then season to taste and pour into a serving dish. 

Pop the tortillas into the microwave (800W) for 45 seconds while you marble the chilli sauce into the cottage cheese NOTE: We skipped this step. No cottage cheese. In an effort to eat less animal products (milk, cheese, meat, etc.) • Squeeze the juice of half the zested lemon over the charred veggies, then take with the falafels to the table, scattering everything with the rest of the coriander • Let everyone assemble their own wraps, and serve with pickled red cabbage, if you like

 

As you can see, there are a few items there highlighted red because I suck, or my brain was shut off, or who the hell knows. Anyway, I forgot the lemon zest, Eric couldn't find harrisa or allspaice so we didn't put it in, and I must have completely skipped over the flour part... We did make 8 patties, except I think they were a little too thick and that's where the real mess happened. We (I) tried to fit them all in the pan (see photo below), big mistake. It made it impossible to flip them and seemed to not cook them as well. So we ended up with a big falafel mess. It worked out, since we were going to be putting them in wraps, but it sure wasn't pretty as you can also see below.

 

Final product turned out pretty appealing and nice. I just didn't really care for it and let Eric eat the rest of mine. I know the problem was the overpowering taste of beans. I DO NOT like beans, like at all, except chickpeas and green beans. Other than those two, I pretty much won't eat beans, unless they are disguised as something like a tasty burger. Since the recipe called for chickpeas and mixed beans (we used pinto beans I think) I thought I would be okay. I was wrong... So I just ate half and let Eric eat the rest. The pinto beans added too much bean for my liking. Below is the final product. What do you think?