Falafel with Tahini Sauce

I don’t think I ate my first falafel until I was in my forties….late thirties at the earliest, and after hearing a great deal of hoo-ha over the years as to the joys of falafel, I must admit that my first experience left me flat.  For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what got people so excited about the little things, as mine were dry and as bland as sawdust on the inside, slick and oily on their surface, and presented with day-old chopped veggies and a REALLY bitter tahini sauce….ugh.

Growing up in Vermont as a kid, I never even heard the word falafel, let alone have any knowledge of what they were.  I was probably in college when I saw my first one, and I remember thinking that it was some sort of meatball when I first laid eyes on it.  Imagine my surprise (and disappointment) when I finally learned that it was basically just a little veggie patty.  Remember, I’m of Italian descent, meatballs make so much more sense to me.  To my way of thinking, falafel was to a meatball, what a veggie burger was to a juicy, 80% lean ground sirloin grilled hunk of deliciousness….you can keep the former, I’ll take the latter thank you very much.

It wasn’t until I married a woman with Lebanese blood flowing through her veins that I was finally in a position to try a well made falafel, and I haven’t been the same since.  When well crafted, they truly are a culinary marvel, packed with flavor, soft and moist on the inside, with a crisp outer shell, served with crunchy pickled turnips or creamy cabbage slaw, chopped fresh tomatoes and greens, some harissa and a garlic-lemon tahini sauce….what can be better?  These days I find myself actively searching out good falafel joints wherever we go.

You may find this odd, but even for our trip to Paris I had identified a top falafel spot to try, one that is so well known that it shows up in all the city’s food guides, the legendary L’as du Fallafel in the Marais. Sadly, my most significant logistical FAIL of the trip occurred because I had scheduled our trip to the Marais neighborhood for a Saturday, THE ONE DAY OF THE WEEK WHEN L’AS DU FALLAFEL IS CLOSED…MERDE!  After considerable kvetching, gritting of teeth, and kicking of self, I promised that we’d get back to the neighborhood sometime again before the end of our trip, but it was not to be. Tough lesson learned, next time I’ll know better.

And so it was that I returned home determined to learn how to make my own falafel.  I shouldn’t feel that I need to fly across the Atlantic to sink my teeth into a “legendary” vegetarian sandwich, I mean, it’s a SANDWICH for crying out loud….I gotta be able to do this!

As I believe the best way to learn a new cuisine is to practice at the side of a master, I enlisted the help of my father-in-law George to teach me the finer points of falafel manufacture.  Always anxious to roll up his sleeves and play in the kitchen, we set a date for about a week after we returned from our trip. He showed up at the appointed time, apron on and well-worn cookbook in hand, and we had ourselves a go at making falafel.  We played with the patty recipe a little, most significantly by substituting a bunch of fresh cilantro for the fresh parsley called for (a no-brainer as far as we are concerned), and George delighted at making the tahini sauce in a heavy old marble mortar and pestle that I bought in Provence.

We had great fun that day, not only making delicious falafel, but also one of his all-time favorite dishes, an “ancient” soup of Egyptian origin called “Malloukhia”, or as George likes to call it “THE BIG M”.  While the Malloukhia recipe is fodder for another blog post, I will tell you that it’s main ingredient, a dried leafy green of the same name, looks like it’s been laying around since the days of the pharaohs, so “ancient” it very well may be.

I can’t tell you that our falafel were as good as we would have had in Paris, I’ll have to wait until I can get back to the Marais and taste at L’as du Fallafel in person before I make that bold of a claim.  What I can tell you is that George (who’s eaten more than a few falafel in his day) says that these were the best he’s ever had, and I can state unequivocally, that these were awfully stinkin’ good, and not at all hard to make.

We cooked them in batches of 6-8 per, and I will fess to the fact that a few of them came out over-done (such as the ones in the photo above…DOH!  The properly cooked ones were eaten so quickly I never had a chance to photograph them).  The best were just cooked through, still the bright-green of cilantro inside, and with a dark-brown (not brown-black) outer shell.  Take care not to over-cook these babies, and you will be rewarded with a healthy treat that the whole family will enjoy.  Making the “dough” and forming the patties is something easily accomplished by the young cooks in your household, though you may want to manage the frying yourself if you’re working with little ones.

Serve solo with the tahini sauce as a snack, as a side to some grilled meat, or wrapped in a flat bread with pickled turnips or cabbage slaw, chopped tomatoes and greens, harissa and tahini sauce….oh, and if your eating them like this as a sandwich, don’t forget a bib.