I discovered this in our first period in Budapest actually when we walked into a tiny place where they sold hummus. It was cozy and we were curious even though we never tried hummus or falafel until that day. We actually liked them and to our surprise the little (she was little at the time!) girl also liked them. Which was a HUGE win because normally she didn't touch anything green. Unfortunately, at some point, we stopped eating them because this place lowered the standards during the pandemic and quality went down the drain. They also used old oil to fry them in and that made it even worse. I never really looked up if they are hard to make until a few months ago.
And have been preparing myself mentally to try making falafel as well as hummus for a few months. I did one attempt on the hummus about a month ago when I didn't have a food processor and thought the blender would work too. It resulted in a very nasty substance and with that my inspiration to try again faded for a few weeks. My boyfriend was horrified by the smell I remember so I left it for a bit. I think the smell was not only coming from the substance but also from the blender being overheated trying to mix that stuff up.
I bought a food processor not long after this failed attempt because I saw one at LIDL for a good price and I figured it would be nice to have it when I'm ready to try again. I didn't use it until recently and when I did I was happy to have one. So far I only tried the first badge of these falafel, I didn't try hummus yet. I found a recipe online stating you can use canned chickpeas for the falafel so I figured it was best to first try this one because I had 2 small cans in the kitchen cabinet and this would mean I'd have a lot less work soaking them and cooking them first, in case the second attempt would be horrible as well, lol.
Not great, just ok and tasted nicely at least. I used the canned chickpeas, cilantro, parsley, onion and garlic in the food processor until smooth enough. I didn't really measure it exactly and added a few spices like pepper, salt, cumin, coriander. There was also a bit of flour in the recipe but I forgot how much. It's not important anyway because I now know that I will not use this recipe again because the next round I will go for soaked chickpeas and hope that I can make them work. This time I also tried frying them in coconut oil in a small pan but that took a lot of time to get them crunchy so next time I will probably add oil to a pan and actually fry them fully instead of just one side each. We don't have a fryer at home, and I'm still considering to buy an airfryer instead of a normal fryer but we're not sure yet if that's the best move.
Either way, we loved the taste and next time I hope to improve them until they come out perfect...
