Falafel made from lima beans. One cup of dry lima beans yielded 14 falafel. Toronto, Canada. Photo, and falafel by Don Tai
We are a Chinese family, so delving into Middle Eastern food is done with baby steps. I really did not know much about falafel so had to do research. While some experimentation is required it turned out to be not that hard. Instead of the traditional fava beans or chickpeas I used lima beans, which I bought by mistake. It worked out very well anyway.
On a foodie travel show, where some wild Brit travels back to his ancestral home of Egypt, he has falafel on the street. Of course we have falafel here in Toronto, but we really do not go to such restaurants, as they are not in my neighbourhood. On this tv show they used fava beans, ground them up with spices, and fried them into round, brown balls. It did not seem very hard to make.
My research included going to many sites. I found out that only in Egypt they use fava beans. In Israel and other Middle Eastern countries the people can get sick if they eat fava beans, due to some genetic deficiency in processing the bean. Instead they use chickpeas. Many sites referenced Tori Avey, so I generally used her recipe.
As I only thought I needed to buy fava beans I went to our local grocer and found two types of broad beans: lima and fava beans. They looked very similar, except that the fava beans were 3 times more expensive. Since i forgot what type of bean was used in the tv show I bought the lima beans.
There are few falafel recipes using lima beans, but they are used exactly the same as fava beans. I soaked the lima beans overnight and they expanded to twice their original size, patted them dry with a paper napkin, and then using a food processor ground them into very small particles. Unfortunately some of the lima beans did not expand and were not chopped up in the food processor. The reason they did not expand is because where the bean attaches to the plant is where the water goes into the bean. For these dozen beans this area was dried hard and did not let any water into the bean. I had to pick off this area and then resoak the dozen beans. It would have been better to sort the beans after the overnight soak, but before the grinding in the food processor.
Added spices included cumin, ground coriander, onion, garlic, red pepper, salt and black pepper. This is a Middle Eastern mix. You could add tumeric, for a more yellow colour. It would be interesting to add chipotle peppers, for a Mexican flavour. I also added 1 tbsp of flour, which allowed the mixture to bind together better.
The recipe also calls for the mixture to sit for 1-2 hours before use, which I did.
When making the cakes I compressed the falafel mixture in my hand, and could see some water when I squeezed hard. I made them into flat cakes about 1.5cm high so that they would easily cook through. I did not want to eat raw bean. It should be easy to compress the cakes and have the mixture stick together. Once they fry in the oil the cakes bind together with no issues.
I have a deep fryer, which I only use for vegetarian cooking, so used it. This allowed the falafel to be completely immersed in hot, high smoking point, vegetable oil, in my case canola oil. I fried 5 at a time for 3 minutes per batch. They turned a nice golden brown. Even though 3 minutes is not long all the falafel were cooked through.
Falafel made from lima beans. One cup of dry lima beans yielded 14 falafel. I ate 2 before the photo. Toronto, Canada. Photo, and falafel by Don Tai
Lima Bean Falafel Recipe
- 1 cup of dry lima beans, soak in lots of water overnight. The next day sort the beans and take out any that have not expanded. For those that did not expand pick off the hard bits where the bean was attached to the plant and resoak.
- Dry the lima beans, then using a food processor, grind up into little particles
- Add spices: cumin, ground coriander, red pepper flakes, salt and black pepper
- Add 1 tbsp of flour
- Mix spices and flower all together with the ground up lima beans
- Let mixture sit for 1-2 hrs, covered
- Make into small round but flat cakes, fry in a deep fryer for 3 minutes. The raw bean mixture will cook through
- Let drain on paper towels and eat when sufficiently cool!
Falafel made from lima beans. One cup of dry lima beans yielded 14 falafel. Toronto, Canada. Photo, and falafel by Don Tai
The falafel are really tasty, vegetarian, have protein and are very good for you. Enjoy.
