Chili bean and Couscous Falafel Recipe

Not exactly authentic, but still delicious, this falafel recipe is based on chili beans and couscous. Chili beans can be as spicy or as mild as you like, and the half-cooked couscous gives the falafel a really nice amount of crunchyness.

Falafel is available in the supermarket, but can be quite expensive to buy - which is silly, because the ingredients are actually really cheap. This recipe is for the basic falafel mix, and it's up to you what you choose to do with it from here. Some of my favorites are...

• Roll into little balls and fry in a pan (the standard way of cooking). Add the falafel to a salad with some homemade dressing, and serve as a main course.
• As a replacement for beef or chicken on homemade burgers - falafel makes great burger patties.
• As stuffing for rolled chicken breasts (see my recipe for stuffed chicken breast with cashews).
• As stuffing for mushrooms - sprinkle some chopped herbs over some field mushrooms and then fill in the cavity with falafel. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake for 25 mins.
• Sausage stuffing - split a sausage down the middle and fill in the gap with herbs and falafel.
• In a pita pocket - add fried falafel to a pita bread pocket, and add minty yoghurt + fresh salad.
• As the main event - nothing wrong with fried falafel balls on their own.

Ingredients

All quantities are up for discussion, feel free to experiment with this one.

• 1 can chili beans with sauce, as spicy as you like
• 1-2 medium onions
• 1/2 a cup of couscous
• Juice of one lemon
• 2-4 cloves of garlic, according to taste
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• Chopped fresh parsley and mint
• Salt and pepper
• Optional - a few chopped fresh chilis or pickled Jalapenos

Chop the onions into large chunks before adding to the blender. Add all ingredients except the couscous to the blender, and mix until well blended but still fairly chunky, as shown. The consistency should be quite moist, but not a liquid. This may vary depending on how much sauce came with your chili beans, so adjust if required.

Half-cooked couscous

My first go at this recipe used uncooked couscous - it tasted nice, but the couscous was just a bit too crunchy and it spoiled the dish overall. My second attempt used cooked couscous, but that didn't work either - the recipe turned to paste, and there just wasn't any texture or anything to make it interesting.
So the answer is to partially cook the couscous, and you get the right amount of crunchiness.

Couscous is cooked by absorbing boiling water, so to half-cook, simply use half the recommended amount of water as per packet directions. Place the couscous in a bowl and slowly add boiling water, until the consistency seems about right - it should have absorbed the water, but not be light and fluffy like couscous normally is.



To finish off, mix the couscous with the other ingredients and stir well.


Cover, and leave in the fridge for at least 30 mins to become more solid.

Tags: recipes vegetarian recipes falafel recipes middle eastern recipes

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