Cheap Meal Ideas: All for Falafel and Falafel for All!

This bear is emerging from blogging hibernation to introduce a guest post from the lovely Carolyn of the Blog Content Guild. I’ll let her dazzle you with her falafel recipe as I lazily retreat back to my cave filled with aromas of cookies baking and tangles of ribbon scrap. A Murray Christmas to all!

Well, it’s that time again: time to make those New Year’s resolutions. And we know just the one we’re going to tackle come 2012. Admittedly, we eat out a lot. Okay, so we like to sample different cuisines, wasting ghastly amounts of money on great food! So sue us! Even so, maybe it’s time to turn over a new leaf and start cookin’ up meals at home. Need some cheap meal ideas? We got just the thing:

Falafel (with all the trimmings)

Anyone who has even had the chance to wander down Rue des Rosiers in Paris has probably enjoyed absolutely magnificent, world-renowned falafel. But going to grab falafel every Sunday may not be the best way to save money. So, why not make it at home? Here’s a great recipe that will help you save a bit of money, while also enjoying a delicious treat.

1 15 oz can of chickpeas
1 onion, diced
1 tbs. garlic, minced
2 tbs. fresh parsley, chopped, 1 tsp coriander
3/4 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbs. flour
1 cup hummus (You can make this homemade too. All you gotta do is throw some chickpeas, olive oil, and tahini paste in a food processor. Yeah, that simple.)

1. Combine chickpeas, garlic, onion, coriander, cumin, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. Add flour and combine well. Mash chickpeas and make sure all the ingredients are mixing together. You can also throw all these ingredients (except the hummus) into a food processor. This will create a think paste. Form paste into small balls and flatten a bit. Fry in 2 inches of oil at 350 degrees until golden.

2. Now all you have to do is get some pita, pick up some nondairy mayo, add a little bit of tomato ketchup, and serve with hummus, tomato, cucumber, and cabbage. Eating cheap has never tasted so good.

A Tale of Two Falafels

Get thyself to Paris posthaste for the tasty falafel balls that put all other vegan sandwich fixin’s to shame. I recently returned from Berlin so I know good falafel from the intensely mediocre microwaved-for-five-minutes variety. Those kind make your heart cry to the moon “FOR SHAME!”

Paris, on the other hand, has got this whole falafel thing down.

After much rigamarole of map miscomprehension, encounters with French health food store employees about aforementioned navigation confusion, and an eventual “fuck it” mentality of total hunger desperation, I stumbled haphazardly upon Maoz Vegetarian. It was either destiny or Murphy took a lunch break that day. Regardless, my impatient belly was ready to take anything this Maoz establishment, often lauded for its all-you-can-eat falafel topping bar approach, could offer.

The gist: you order your falafel sandwich complete with eggplant and creamy dreamy hummus and fill it up with as many (or as little, if that’s your jam) toppings as your hungry eyeballs desire plus a few healthy spatterings of tahini to finish. Olives, herbed carrots, cukes, and beets were my choices, but there were options aplenty. Only 4€ poorer while uncomfortably stuffed and messy-mouthed 20 minutes later, I proclaimed it as comfort food at its finest. Assuming, of course, one’s version of comfort food involves chickpea-parsely balls bathed in a tub of oil and sesame-seed fattiness (tahini).

I was thoroughly relieved to have procured food after an agonizing dry patch of at least 5 hours. No judgment, s’il vous plaît et merci.

Next on the itinerary was the most highly celebrated falafel joint in town; every Paris guidebook extols you to visit in varying levels of that inexplicably charming dorkiness honed by His Holiness Rick Steves. Regardless, they all get across the same key points: the falafel balls are about as tasty as they come, the lines are long, and the prices are practically unbeatable.

No dissent from this satisfied customer.

After a brisk, sunny walk (yes, authentic Parisian sunshine) from the Bastille I was barraged with the sights, sounds, and smells of the Jewish Marais. Black-side-burned Orthodox Jews peddled Pourim kits of je-ne-sais-quoi to eye-averting passerby’s while I marched on with nothing but lunch noms on the brain.

After I hastily ordered the “Falafel Special” and forked over a fold of euros to the pressed employee managing the oncoming crowd, I was handed a receipt and shown the end of a respectably long line. Rather than grumble in a sullen state of hunger-stabby, I marveled at the que’s mere existence in line-phobic, blob-happy Europe. I then proceeded to photograph the restaurant’s window exterior, which proudly reads “always imitated, never equaled.” What more do you expect from a place self-christened “The Ace of Falafel”?

It’s not exactly a mystery why throngs of people are willing to wait 15 minutes for nourishment at L’As instead of partaking at one of the countless other falafel joints in the Marais. This was one seriously satisfying gargantuan sandwich: fluffy pita bread stuffed to bursting with garlicky falafel balls, hummus, fried eggplant, pickled cabbage slaw, cukes, and puddles of tahini to boot.

I was hard-pressed to wait the agonizing 5 minutes of walking travel time to the nearby Place des Vosges. And you know what? I’m woman enough to confess to a few indescribably blissful tahini-drenched head-diving chomps on the sidewalk before I procured my far-off, sun-bathing park bench.

I hope you’re not experiencing falafel-burn-out because there is more (German!) chickpea ball tales to come. But, more importantly: what say you? Where is the best falafel you’ve ever had the happy pleasure to mange? Use of Franglais optional.