Falafel

I still remember how far the humble falafel drifted from its roots. In Lebanese kitchens, these golden spheres were never the pale, crumbly discs you find boxed in supermarket freezers. Those usually cost around three pounds and are held together by wheat flour, stabilisers, and canned chickpeas. That convenience comes at a steep cost to flavour and texture; they steam rather than fry, taste faintly of cardboard, and dissolve into mush. True falafel begins with dried chickpeas soaked overnight, because the raw starches and natural moisture are exactly what bind the paste without a single egg or shop-bought binder. When you grind them with fresh parsley, garlic, toasted coriander, cumin, and a whisper of baking soda, you get something deeply aromatic. The most common pitfall is rushing the soak or boiling the beans, which turns the mixture into a wet slurry that shatters in the oil. Another trap is overcrowding the pan, dropping the temperature and leaving you with greasy, dense patties instead of crisp, airy bites. I shape these into compact rounds and freeze them raw on a tray before bagging. This batch-hero method lets you drop them straight into shimmering oil, watching them puff into a delicate crust while the interior turns impossibly tender. Making them from scratch isn’t about nostalgia; it’s about reclaiming a street food that deserves to crackle, not crumble.

Storage times are a guide — always use your judgement and store food safely.