Falafel

Falafel (فلافل, פָלָאפֶל; also known in Egypt and Sudan as ta'meya, Arabic طعمية), is a fried ball or patty made from spiced fava beans and/or chickpeas. It has become a popular form of fast food in the Levant and in the Mashriq (Arab East), where it is also served as a mezze (snack or tapas). The word "falafel" is the plural of the Arabic word فلفل (filfil), meaning pepper. Variant spellings in English include felafel and filafil. Falafel is usually served as a sandwich wrapped in pita bread, and outside the Middle East, the term "falafel" commonly refers to this sandwich—falafel in a pita is typical street food or fast food. Along with the falafel balls, which may be crushed onto the bread or added whole, topping variations are usually included. Falafel balls may also be eaten alone as a snack or served as part of a mezze. During Ramadan they are sometimes eaten as part of an iftar, the meal which breaks the daily fast after sunset.

Falafel has been part of the diet of Mizrahi Jews for centuries and is a staple of the Israeli diet. It has become the national dish of Israel.

Falafel is now seen as a uniting, pan-Middle-Eastern dish. In recent years, immigration from the Middle East to Western countries has brought with it a broader availability of Middle Eastern cuisine, and the falafel sandwich has become a popular and iconic food within alternative fast food or slow food movements, and indeed has spread worldwide.

They are also used as a vegan alternative filler to a Döner kebab in many countries.

Ingredients
Falafel is made from fava beans or chickpeas or a combination of the two. The Egyptian variation uses exclusively fava beans, while other variations may only use chickpeas. Unlike many other bean patties, in falafel the beans are not cooked prior to use. Instead they are soaked, possibly skinned, then ground with the addition of a small quantity of onion, parsley, spices (including cumin), and bicarbonate of soda, and deep fried at a high temperature. Sesame seeds may be added to the balls before they are fried; this is particularly common when falafel is served as a dish on its own rather than as a sandwich filling.

Recent culinary trends have seen the triumph of the chickpea falafel over the fava bean falafel. Chickpea falafels are served across the Middle East, and have been popularized by expatriates of those countries living abroad.

Topping variations
There is more than one way to make a falafel sandwich. Outside the Middle East a Greek-style pita bread is often used as a pocket and stuffed with the different ingredients; in Arab countries a round khubz bread, 'eish' in Egypt, is halved, and the two resulting round pieces are used to create a cigar-shaped wrap. In Arab countries, hummus (chickpeas pureed with tahini) is rarely an ingredient. The usual sauce is tahini (sesame seed paste) thinned with water and lemon. The most common salad ingredients are tomato and parsley. In Lebanon parsley is mixed with chopped mint leaves. It is also common in Syria and Lebanon to add pickles; the two canonical ones are pickled turnip, colored pink with beetroot, and pickled cucumber. Many Israelis like to add fried aubergine (eggplant) in addition to the regular "Israeli Salad" (chopped cucumbers and tomatoes). In Israel, Lebanon and the UAE, French fries are a frequent addition. Also in Israel the pita and hummus are common. Recently, there has been a new "filled" falafel, its center usually consisting of ground meat or minced onions. These fillings are wrapped by the uncooked falafel mixture, and then deep fried.

The salads or the pita itself may be seasoned with sumac or salt; alternatively, these may be applied to the top. In Syria, sumac is practically a universal accompaniment to falafel, whether in a sandwich or otherwise. Falafel is becoming an increasingly common sandwich or snack food.

Related dishes

 * In Indian cuisine, ambode is a fried ball of soaked chickpeas. It is usually flattened and pan-fried, and served with chutney. Alternatively, in the South Indian cuisine, paruppu vadai is used to refer to flattened, fried balls (or fritters) of a mix of lentils and chickpeas.


 * In Italian cuisine, there is a chickpea fritter called frittata di ceci; other similar Italian dishes include panelle and farinata.


 * Acarajé, an Afro-Brazilian street food from the northeastern state of Bahia, are pureed black-eyed peas formed into a ball and then deep-fried in palm oil.

Trivia

 * Falafel is often referred to as the "national food of Israel".
 * A Falafel vendor is featured in the 2005 film Batman Begins.
 * In a 2005 BBC training video on the Middle East conflict, falafel is used by the BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen as a metaphor both for the shared heritage of people in the region as well as for the complicated and conflicting truth claims often made by Israelis and Palestinians.
 * TV personality Bill O'Reilly is nicknamed the Falafel Guy, after mistaking the loofah sponge with falafel in an alleged phone conversation with Andrea Mackris.
 * In the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, a character portrayed by Paul Norell is known as Falafel, because he is a Falafel vendor.