
I had a small party at my place for Thanksgiving 🙂 2020 is close to the end and it had been a tough year for everyone. Every moment to be with someone in person was cherished like never before.
I recently started to explore Turkish cuisine and this was technically my second attempt at Falafel. What happened to the first one? Well…i failed because i used canned chickpeas. Falafel MUST be made from dried chickpeas!
The full process takes few day because soaking the chickpeas alone take 24 hours. After soaking, the chickpeas were put into food processor and blended into coarse grain with garlic, cilantro, cumin, coriander and salt. I sort of follow an online recipe here. I completely forgot about the baking powder at first and put the mixture into the fridge overnight. Lucky enough i remember the next day and added it in.
So soaking 24 hours, chill mixture overnight and that was 2 days gone. On the third day i started shaping them into ping pong size, slightly flatten balls for frying. I discovered that controlling the oil temperature was crucial after i exploded a few in the first batch. Later i resolved to frying at most 2 pieces at a time and manage to get some photogenic ones. The exploded ones were tasty too none the less, and i snacked on them while preparing for the party.

For the full table i had roast chicken, hummus, roast cauliflower with parmesan, fried shishito, tabbouleh, cucumber salad and chopped roasted eggplant.
It was a great night with friends. I really glad that we were able to have a good time while giving one of us a proper farewell before she start her new role in another team.
I wish we would remain resilient for the remaining of 2020 and hope that 2021 would be a better year…