falafel and yogurt sauce!

last week i thought it might be fun to make some falafel, and i got the recipe from mark bittman, once again.

this recipe is different from any others i've come across in that you don't cook the chickpeas. as in, they are kind of raw until you cook the patties. you start out the day before, by soaking a couple cups of chickpeas in a bunch of water. like this:

24 hours later, they look like this:

sometime in the middle of these two pictures, i made some sort of tzatziki / raita / yogurt sauce hybrid. you grate some cucumber...

and add it to some greek yogurt along with lemon juice, dill, and minced garlic. mmm.

while the yogurt is chilling...you turn back to the chickpeas. drain them and put them in a food processor with things like onion and cayenne and cumin and spices...

and parsley. forgot the parsley...

food processors are genius inventions. i tasted things at this point and had mixed feelings about the texture.

but it did not stop me from making little falafel patties and putting them in the oven to bake.

mmm. cooked falafel.

look! fixin's!

this was good. i think the homemade falafel was a success, but next time i might try a cooked chickpea version. also, i was a bit garlic-happy in my yogurt sauce. must remember that stuff is extra strong when its raw.