I just had one of my most complete cooking failures ever!

[xiphias]

I decided to try to make falafel. The paste I made up tasted pretty good; I let it rest in the fridge for about an hour or so. I got the oil hot, dropped balls of the paste into the oil, and let it cook.

Three minutes later, when I went to check the falafel, the oil was empty.

The falafel had completely dissolved.

I now have a pot with hot oil and a thick coating of crisy chickpea mud on the bottom. I fried up some leftover bean stuff that we had, and that worked out pretty well -- Lis is eating that -- and, as long as I had the oil, I sliced up a potato. But there's no falafel.

Comments

Sounds more like "feel-awful" than falafel

[jhitchin.livejournal.com]

That's okay. We all have our cooking failures. My father once made macaroni & cheese and failed to cook the macaroni first.

Oops.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

*snrk* That's really something. Thanks for sharing. :)

[tapuz.livejournal.com]

Well, I certainly feel better now that you've shared!
This one has been following me since September 1998 -- I made felafel from scratch once for a sheva braches for (perhaps mutual?) friends.... yehoshua and my brother got to watch my similar devastation first hand... (and were both rather polite about it :-)) luckily the bride had brought leftover lasagne...

Were you using the recipe in the original Moosewood by any chance?

[angelovernh.livejournal.com]

how very strange.. I don't know anything about falafel, and don't think I've ever had it, but I will keep this in mind if I ever try to make it. Any idea what went wrong? Not hot enough?

[copperpoint.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's happened to me almost every time I've tried to make falafel. Sometimes they stay together well enough that I can say they're just very small falafel balls. But no one believes me.

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

I've done that with chickpea fritters. I finally gave up on the "fritter" part and started making them as dried patties. The recipe calls for no binder, but ground soaked chickpeas, garlic, and salt and pepper do not stay together in hot oil.