Sudanese Tamiya (Falafel)

Recipe contributed by: Dhara Balwa

We lived in Khartoum, Sudan for some time a few years back. The nice, friendly Sudanese people really made up for all the extreme heat and sun. Kaif halak, Sudanese friends? Tamam? I miss Khartoum and our dear ones there. So, everybody has their soul food. My soul food is the Sudanese food. I feel so content eating it, especially their fava beans. I like Tamiya too but being fried, I don't make it often. I think I made it this time after an year. There is a big restaurant aptly named 'Lazeez' that is always busy. I am not sure about now but their was a small room with upper half of the wall in glass all around. A cook would make fresh Tamiya right in front of everyone and they were so delicious!

When we came here in US and started searching for similar food, the falafels were very disappointing (and still are). I guess the benchmark is very high! My falafel recipe is inspired from those served at Lazeez. Luckily I met a Sudanese lady in my community and we quickly connected. I asked her questions about the recipe and she gave me the ingredients list. I had to figure out the quantities. I searched for Sudanese Tamiya recipe on internet and found what I was looking for. This recipe is adapted from Celina Bean's website who also shares a wonderful story related  to the recipe. As she says, these falafels are best eaten within few minutes of coming out of the pan. But, they can be prepared in advance too.

Photo by Dhara Balwa

Adapted from Celina Bean
Makes: 18 nos.
Prep time: 20 min + overnight soak time for Chick peas; Cook Time: 40 min
Difficulty level: Medium

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups overnight soaked Chick Peas (not dry)
1/4th of a large Onion
1/2 cup Water
1 tsp. Baking Powder
4 tsp. packed fresh Dill, finely chopped
2 tsp. Garlic, minced
1 1/2 Tbsp. All Purpose Flour
Fresh ground Pepper as per liking
Salt as per taste
Oil for Frying
Sesame Seeds, Optional

Method:

1) Keep 3/4th cup of chick peas aside and put the rest of chick peas and a little less than 1/4 cup water in food processor and pulse it till you get a coarse mixture. Take a little mixture in your hand and squeeze it, if it retains the ball shape, it is ready or pulse more. It should look like shown in the picture below on the left.




Left one: Coarse Mixture; Right one: Finer, Wetter Mixture

2) Empty the contents in a mixing bowl and keep aside. Add the remaining 3/4th cup of chickpeas in the food processor. Add onion and remaining water to it and churn it to finer, wetter mixture as shown in the image above on the right.

3) Heat oil for frying in a frying pan. Mix both the mixtures in the bowl and add dill, garlic, baking powder, 1/2 tsp. pepper powder and salt and mix the ingredients well. You can also add sesame seeds to the mixture. I have shown both options.

4) Make small flat discs giving it shape in between your palms as shown below. The recipe will yield 18 discs of this size

 5) Fry them on medium-high heat as they need to be cooked well from inside too. Say, highest heat is 10, fry on 6 or 7. It took me 40 min to fry them all coz I fried them in small frying pan that could take 4 patties at a time. You will be done quicker if you use a bigger pan. This is how it should look from inside.

These, people, are the best falafels. But don't take my word for it. Try them and I bet you will agree.

Serve with your favorite dip. I have the recipes of Hummus and Tzatziki dips that go with falafel on this blog.