Two Weeks (yes, two) of Falafel: Frijol'el Negro

I was so pleased with the recipe I pulled together last week: meatless, low fat, some fiber, high protein, and mostly fresh ingredients. No bad! Until I had to recognize that I had mashed up all this goodness, rolled it into little balls, and then dropped them one by one into a vat of boiling badness. Yes, deep frying does make them delicious; but it seems almost a little demented to do this to this otherwise perfectly harmless meal.   

So, I’m going to try something. If you’re reading this, then it must have worked. If you’re not, then I wonder what I ended up doing…?

Here's everything you need:

1 - 15 ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 medium onion, chopped
1 medium jalapeño pepper, seeded and chopped
1 ear of fresh corn, kernels cut from the cob
1/4 cup fresh parsley
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Juice of half a lime
2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon Aleppo pepper
¼ teaspoon hot paprika
½ - 1 teaspoon kosher salt, to taste
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup of pre-soaked bulgar (about ⅓ cup dry, soaked in ½ cup of boiling water for an hour)
3-5 tablespoons of unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Vegetable oil for frying

Here’s what to do:

Mash black beans in a large bowl until chunky and pasty. A potato masher works best for this. Put onion, jalapeño, corn, garlic, parsley, and lime juice in a food processor and blend until finely chopped; but not pureed. Add to the mashed black beans and mix thoroughly.

Add chili powder, cumin, paprika, Aleppo pepper, salt, black pepper, and bulgur and mix thoroughly with a spoon. Mix in, by tablespoons, enough flour for the dough to hold together. It will be a little sticky. Refrigerate dough for about half an hour.

About 15 minutes before cooking, mix baking powder into dough and preheat oven to 300°. 

Form dough into medium, flattened patties. Arrange them on a lightly greased or lined cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Carefully flip each one over and bake for 10 more minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

So far so good, FYI.

Add about one tablespoon of vegetable oil to a non-stick skillet to cover, heat to medium high, and add patties to skillet. Sauté until evenly browned. Drain on a paper towel.

I'm serving them on flour tortillas with a lube I made by mixing half a container of Fage Total 0% plain yogurt, the juice of the other half of that lime you were wondering what to do with (never mind that you now have a half container of yogurt), a clove of minced garlic, and a little sea salt, black pepper, & Aleppo pepper. Lettuce, tomatoes, etc. as you wish.

The verdict? Not great. I think there might be something here for a veggie burger. Maybe.

What happened? For one, too much liquid came out of the food processing stage. Then I had to adjust that by adding bread crumbs and flour in addition to the bulgar. All of this wheat gave them a bitter taste. Plus, I chopped the corn in the food processor because I thought the whole kernels would make the patties fall apart. As a result, the corn was undetected except for a mysterious, unwelcome sweet taste.

I could tinker and try making them again; but my palate understands that they probably still won't be that great. I think the same bodes for the forthcoming iterations (the plan was Italian, Moroccan, and West-Coast Fusion). So, I'm going to make this a two part series and call it good. Yes, I am kind of giving up; but I'm doing it out of sincere practicality. :)

Sorry for making you read all this, by the way. I made it so far I couldn't bear to hit delete.

On a positive note, though, baking them totally worked! And the yogurt sauce was pretty dope, as well.