Anjee & Mary's Oven Baked Falafel Recipe

Last week I flew to Grand Cayman to visit my friend, and she treated me to brunch at the South West Collective (Cafe) on the waterfront in Georgetown, where I ordered “Happy Eggs”, “Life Giving Toast” & Beet Falafel. (I made a YouTube short about it here: https://youtube.com/shorts/fEArBW3fgcI?feature=share). They were sooooo good it inspired us to make falafel at her house later in the week, not once, but TWICE!! (TBH the first batch wasn’t falafel enough, so we HAD to give it a second try), and it was sooo good I thought I would share it!

Note: these are not “traditional” falafel; we tweaked the ingredients a bit to avoid using bread crumbs and the seasoning too, based on what my friend had on hand at her house.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups dried chickpeas, cover with water and soak overnight, then rinse and drain

• 1/2 bunch cilantro

• 1/2 bunch Italian/flat leaf parsley

• 4-5 garlic cloves

• 1 shallot or small onion

• 1 tsp curry powder (we didn’t have cumin & paprika)

• 2 tsp baking soda

In place of bread crumbs as a binder we used:

• 2 tbsp hemp hearts, and 2 tbsp ground flax, as well as 1 egg to help bind it together (you could probably just use extra flax if you didn’t want to include an egg).

STEPS:

1. Process all the ingredients in your food processor until smooth crumbs.

2. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour.

3. Then we used a tbsp to measure 2 tbsp of falafel mixture, and portioned it out onto a baking sheet.

4. Traditionally you would deep fry these, but we sprayed them with olive oil and oven baked them at 390F for 15minutes, then flipped them and baked them about 8 more minutes (until they are golden brown).

5. The serve them with your favourite sauce, and enjoy!!!