Nuggets of joy

  Following my raving yesterday about the walnut sized marvels that are freshly cooked, home made felafel, it's time the share the love. Firstly, credit for this recipe has to go straight to Honey & Co. cos it's from their fab cookbook. This is a brief version but you'll have no trouble achieving the status of legend among those you serve these to.

  First up, you'll need to soak your chickpeas overnight so go and chuck at least 250g of dried chickpeas in a bowl with loads of water. You'll have loads left over, but boil them up to make hummus (cos everyone loves hummus). Come back the next day and we'll finish this off.

  Now they're soaked we can finally get cracking.

In a food processor put a peeled onion (about 100g) and a peeled clove of garlic. Bitz!

Now add to the processor,

about 2 tablespoons of flour, (chickpea flour if you have it but wheat will be ok if not),

a teaspoon of baking powder,

a tablespoon each of ground cumin and coriander seed, (I recommend freshly ground for maximum flavour but you may not have the facilities),

a big pinch of salt,

250g of drained chickpeas. and blitz again.

The mix doesn't want to be totally smooth, texture is good but you will probably need to scrape down the sides a couple of times to make sure you don't get big lumps of chickpea.

You want the mix to stick together so if it's falling apart either it's not quite blitzed enough or it needs a bit more flour.

You can either fry them now or keep the mix in the fridge for a couple of days.

  Shape the mix into small, walnut size nuggets, (whatever shape you like). To fry, in a pan you want to put 2-3 inches of oil like sunflower, peanut, vegetable etc. Get it hot and gently lower up to 6 felafel in. They only take about 3 minutes to cook and you want to turn them at least once. When you think they're done, check to see if there is a crunchy outside and soft almost fluffy inside. Take out the felafel and put on some kitchen paper to drain. Serve pronto with a dip of something like tahini with yoghurt, lemon and chopped parsley.

  Finally, allow your adoring guests to carry you around at shoulder height while chanting your name. For a bit of variety, you can try other spices, lemon zest, chopped herbs or even fresh turmeric into the mix. You've plenty of time to get this sorted before the weekend so put chickpeas on your shopping list and don't forget to check if you've got enough oil in the house as well as all the other gubbins you'll need. Most importantly, make sure to send me pictures, and not just the ones of you being worshiped by your fans.

Kirk out

Chefsebastian.com