Number 1 on my food craving list at the moment is felafel. Rolled up in a tortilla with salad and hummus, broken up in a bowl of salad or just dipped into hummus and straight into my mouth. Ahhh!! Food heaven.
Felafels were never a big part of my life. On the very odd occasion (like maybe 3-4 times in my life) I would get a takeaway felafel wrap and I thought that they were OK but not great. About a year ago I found a packet of felafels at Coles and since it’s so rare to find something ready-made that is both vegan and gluten-free, I got all excited and gave them a try.
They were quite nice and what surprised me the most is that my husband Klutch loved them! His new favourite food became a tortilla wrap with felafels, salad, hummus and sweet chilli sauce. It was an easy fall-back meal for us for either lunch or dinner. We bought the tortillas and felafels so all we had to do was make some hummus, chop up some salad and we were ready to go.
Then the only vegan and gluten free tortillas that we could buy stopped being produced which ended up being a good thing because it forced me to come up with a recipe to make our own and we like them so much more! Around the same time I tried to make our own felafels but I made the mistake of using chickpeas from a can and they pretty much dissolved when I put them in the pan to cook.
Next time I soaked dried chickpeas overnight and then made the felafels and they stayed together and the flavour was so fresh and delicious. There is no way that we could ever go back to store bought. We love them soooo much!
We like used to put fresh tomatoes on the wraps but then discovered that oven roasted tomatoes are really good as well. I have already posted about how to cook oven roasted tomatoes in my Big Breakie post which you can find here: http://www.myveganplate.com/big-breakfast/ . I can’t imagine a felafel wrap without hummus which I have also blogged about previously so that recipe can be found here: http://www.myveganplate.com/hummus/.
Once our wraps are rolled up with the felafels and the rest of the yummy ingredients, we use a small sandwich press to flatten the wrap and crisp up the outside. I haven’t tried any other ways of doing that but using a frypan on a medium heat would probably work too. Just flatten the filled wrap in the pan a bit with an egg flip and enjoy!
Please don’t get put off by how underwhelming the wraps look in the photo but I photographed them on 3 different occasions and couldn’t get them to look any more appealing. They are really yummy though!
- 1 cup dried chick peas (garbanzo beans) – soaked overnight (not canned – they fall apart when cooking)
- 1 onion – chopped in quarters
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 tsp cumin
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 2 tsp ground coriander (cilantro)
- big handful coriander
- ½ handful Italian parsley
- ¼ - ½ cup gluten free plain flour
- Olive oil for cooking
- Soak chickpeas (garbanzo beans) for at least 10-12 hours. I usually do it the night before so I know they will be ready.
- When chickpeas are finished soaking, drain, rinse and add to your food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the flour and olive oil.
- Process until all the ingredients have combined and formed a thick paste. You will probably have to scrape down the sides a few times and process for at least a couple of minutes. Once the mix goes from finely chopped pieces to a paste, add the flour. You might be able to get away with ½ cup of flour but I usually find that I need ½ cup due to the moisture from the fresh herbs. Process again until really well combined.
- Remove bowl from the food processor. Have a large plate or flat baking dish ready with a piece of baking paper on it. I usually use a spatula to pick up some of the mix and then roll with my hands to form balls about the size of ping pong balls. Place on plate or tray as you go. If you keep your hands slightly damp, this can help stop the mixture from sticking to your hands. Once you have finished you will need to place them into the fridge for at least one hour. This will help them stop them from falling apart when you cook them. You should have about 14 felafels, depending on how big you rolled them.
- minutes before you are ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to 200°C (392°F). When you are ready to cook, put a small amount of olive oil in your frypan – just enough to cover the bottom of the pan. We just want to brown the felafels and then the oven will do the rest.
- Place about 4 felafels in the pan at a time. You want room to be able to flatten each one slightly with your egg flip and also to turn them over. Cook each side for about 30 seconds or so until they are browned then remove from pan and either place on a plate or directly onto the tray you will be putting in the oven. Repeat until all felafels are browned. Place in oven for approximately 20 minutes. Test one and if cooked, take all out of oven.
- TORTILLAS
- 160g potato flour
- 125g chickpea flour (besan flour)
- 1½ cups water
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce (optional)
- Mix dry ingredients in a bowl until well combined. Try and break up any lumps in flour. Pour in water and mix together. You will need this to be a very thin consistency so you might need to add more than 1½ cups of water but start with that amount and add more if you need to. If you want to add sweet chilli sauce then do that now too and mix well.
- Heat a shallow non-stick frypan or crepe pan. I used to use an old frypan so I lightly sprayed it with oil but now I use a new crepe pan and don’t need to add any oil thanks to its non-stick surface.
- When the pan is hot, hold the handle of the pan in one hand and pour the mixture in with the other hand. Pour into the middle and swirl the pan around so the mixture covers most of the base of the pan. This takes a few tries to get perfect but it is kind of fun once you get the knack of it. It will only take a few seconds before the edges of the tortilla cook and start to life. Once this happens, slide your egg flip under the tortilla and then flip over. Cook for a few seconds on the other side and then remove from pan and place on a plate with a piece of paper towel under the tortilla.
- Keep cooking until all tortillas are done.
- lettuce
- tomatoes – fresh or oven roasted http://www.myveganplate.com/big-breakfast/
- cashews
- sweet chilli sauce
- Turn on your sandwich press so it heats while you make your wraps. Use a butter knife to coat the upside of the tortilla with hummus and drizzle with sweet chilli sauce. Then add chopped lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, broken up felafel and cashews. Roll wrap and place in sandwich press for a few minutes until browned and crispy. If you don’t have a sandwich press, you should be able to do the same thing in a non-stick frypan and flatten down with an egg flip.
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