Saturday 27 March 2010

Falafel with canellini bean humous

I seem to have had a box of Al Fez falafel mix sitting in my cupboard for the past year or so now. And as spring finally seems to have arrived I thought I'd try move on from hearty winter fare to something (a little) lighter. So falafel and humous with salad it was. The mix just needed cold water adding to it, and shaping into around six small-ish balls before frying (the instructions said to deep fry but I defied them and shallow fried the falafel). This is definitely a quick and easy way to make falafel and is not bad on the taste front either, with a good hit of cumin against an otherwise mild background. I did find the texture a little dense and stodgy though- but this may have been down to my frying choices. I think I'd like to try making my own falafel from scratch to really compare flavours but until then this Al Fez mix is not a bad shortcut.

I was fully intending to make a regular chickpea humous to go with the falafel but due to a previous shopping error found I only had a tin of canellini beans available. This seemed to be an acceptable substitute though, so I tipped the contents of the tin into my trusty Kenwood mini-chopper along with a fat clove of garlic, a heaped teaspoon of tahini, salt and pepper to taste, and a squeeze of lemon juice. The texture of this humous was a lot smoother than one made with chickpeas (and didn't need any olive oil adding to it). And although it lacked the slight nutty taste of regular humous it was still pretty good. A red onion, tomato, and cucumber salad and some warmed pitta bread completed my meal- and it did feel like I had taken a small step towards summer (of course it poured down with rain the next day).

Al Fez Falafel Mix
I rate it 7/10
Cost: Around £1.00

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