Recipe: Falafel Burgers

I don’t know about you, but every now and again I find that I get stuck in a rut with what I am eating. I try not to have the same meal too regularly, simply because it gets boring, but somehow each week the same ingredients end up in my shopping trolley. This weekend, simply because we both had a little more time, my boyfriend and I made a point of trying to find something new to make. The recipe books came out, and falafel burgers were what we chose.

Ingredients

800g canned chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 small onion, chopped

juice and grated rind of 1 lime

2tsp ground coriander

2tsp ground cumin

6 tbsp plain flour

4tbsp olive oil

watercress, to garnish (optional)

ready made tomato salsa, to serve (optional but strongly recommended!)

Method

• Put the chickpeas, onion, lime juice and rind and the spices into a food processor and process to a coarse paste.
• Tip out onto a clean work surface and shape into 4 patties.
• Spread out the flour on a large flat plate and turn the patties to coat.
• Heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the patties and cook for two minutes on each side, until crisp. Serve immediately.

We struggled a little with the consistency of the paste – our patties seemed very sloppy and required a lot of flour to create any sort of shape. Rather than garnish ours with watercress (although I’m sure this would have been great) we served ours with sweet potato wedges and green beans. My boyfriend also had his in a brioche bun. The burgers were very filling and a little bland, which is why the tomato salsa comes strongly recommended. If I made them again I would definitely be experimenting with spice! Leftovers are great cold for lunch the next day. Enjoy!

Recipe taken from “Falafel Burgers”, found in 150 Vegetarian Recipes by LOVE FOOD, published by Parragon Books.