Falafels–Proof that God Doesn’t Hate Vegans

About a year and a half ago, in an effort to quickly whip up some content for what was then a 24 hour old, nearly empty website, I wrote a short piece about my lunch that day entitled “Is a Falafel Wrap a Sandwich?” My answer was Yes, and damn the consequences! I’ve historically been pretty inclusive on my definition of a sandwich, and if falafel wraps opens up the door for bean burritos to be sandwiches as well, then I’ll own that. I’ll take full responsibility. Well, I’ll share responsibility with Jeb Lund.

I made an offhand comment in that post that the downtown Chicago-based chain I Dream of Falafel where I had bought the wrap in question was “essentially a Mediterranean Chipotle.” In the past few years, there have been several of that type of fast casual falafel/shawarma joints springing up around the Chicago area, following the Chipotle ordering model (which, as my cousin Kelly pointed out to me recently, is basically an evolution of the Subway model). Choose your platform, choose your protein, choose your veg & condiments. Hopefully without the slimy cheap coldcuts and even slimier spokesman of a Subway, or the weirdly uniform meatcubes and attendant E. coli of a Chipotle.

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But hang on a sec before we get too far along here. Just what are falafels anyway?

They’re made of ground chickpeas and herbs, but that doesn’t do them justice. They are deep-fried balls of Levantine deliciousness. Crisp on the outside, soft, dense and moist on the inside, they’re served in salads, pitas, flatbread wraps, with rice, with hummus, in combo meals… they can be a side or a main, or both at the same time if you want (“yeah, gimme a falafel sandwich with a sack of falafels on the side”). They’re just damned tasty.

It’s fair to say I’m a fan. But falafels are a relatively recent addition to my lunch repertoire. Growing up in a small town without much access to ethnic foods (and before the internet had evolved into the everpresent global knowledgebase you are coincidentally perusing at this very moment), I never had much opportunity to try this type of thing. Nor did my family.

So when my parents visited last weekend, I decided to change that and do a falafel bar at home for lunch.

When we lived on the north side, we were just over a mile from the Albany Park neighborhood and all the middle-eastern food you could ever want. Our typical Saturday involved a quick drive to pick up breakfast somewhere just off Lawrence & Kedzie–fresh-baked pitas with hummus, baba ghanoush, cheese (feta or halloumi generally), olives, dried figs, Halva, etc. In the south suburbs where I am now, there are a few places here and there, but far less dense. However, a couple exits up the Tri-State Tollway is Bridgeview, IL, once described by friend of the site Mike Gebert as a “mecca for Chicago’s best middle eastern” food.

Restaurants abound in and around Bridgeview, but there’s a specific strip mall on 87th street just west of Harlem where I like to go. What I can’t get at Alwatan Bakery…

I’ll find at Al-Amal Supermarket, just a couple doors west.

Alwatan makes pitas fresh daily, along with meat pies, cheese pies, fantastic spicy and sour spinach pies, zaatar bread, and a bunch of other middle eastern baked treats. You can also buy falafel by the sack there, which I did.

I asked the young man working the counter at Alwatan, who had grown up in a Lebanese-Palestinian family, what kind of veggies and/or condiments he liked in his falafel sandwiches. Tomatoes, he said. Cucumbers, onions. Hummus. Tahini sauce.

Down at Al-Amal, I also asked the man there what he liked on his falafels. Pickles, he said. Tahini. Baba Ghanoush. Onions. Tomatoes. Lettuce. Hot sauce. So I bought pickles, hummus, baba ghanoush, pickled turnips (I love those wacky bright pink things), tahini, chili sauce, the delicious shriveled-looking little black olives my family loves so much, and various other accoutrements for our “falafel bar.”

The falafel bar was a hit. Mom ate hers in a salad rather than a sandwich as she is on a gluten-free diet. My stepdad Ronnie was surprised how much he liked them. The boys tore into their sandwiches of course. And Mindy and I enjoyed ours as well. Everybody likes their falafel sandwiches tricked out a little differently, but the falafels themselves are pretty universally enjoyed. Mine? Hummus, falafel, lettuce, onions, pickles, pickled turnips, tomatoes, cucumbers, and hot sauce. The whole shebang, damn near.

How was it? It was OK. The pickles were great, but the cucumbers and tomatoes were missing a little something. The tahini sauce I made that day could have been better. Store-bought canned hummus and baba ghanoush are of course suspect at the best of times (and unnecessary usually, since hummus is so easy to make, and baba ghanoush not much more difficult). My falafel needed some work.

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To recalibrate, I tried some of those commercial fast-casual falafel sandwiches I mentioned earlier. I still haven’t completely filled up my I Dream of Falafel loyalty card (I’ve had it for nearly 4 years now and haven’t managed to visit them 10 times yet–so much for loyalty. FWIW I’ve filled up 5 or 6 from J.P. Graziano in that time), and the location I previously visited on Franklin has since shut down, but there’s one just 2 blocks from my new office in the West Loop.

IDOF has changed things up a few times since I started going–same basic setup but I think they’ve played around with the salad options a bit, and for a while they were limiting how many condiments you could choose. Also, based on the updated, more severe logo on the bag they gave me, it seems like they may be rebranding away from the hippy-dippy getup you can see on the storefront above.

I got the sandwich instead of the wrap this time–a cut-open pita, spread with hummus, red pepper hummus, or baba ghanoush, stuffed with falafel (there are also shawarma and doner kebab options), salad, and sauces. I chose regular hummus, a cucumber/tomato salad (sort of a Jerusalem salad without the onions), tahini sauce (falafel ain’t falafel without tahini sauce IMO), onions, and their spicy tomato sauce.

This was good, much better than I remember IDOF being. The cucumber/tomato salad was a superior accompaniment to the falafels than cucumbers or tomatoes alone had been, enhanced by citrus, salt, and herbs. Their spicy tomato sauce added some heat along with a pleasingly savory quality. With the competition in the fast-casual Mediterranean field in downtown Chicago, IDOF has clearly had to step up their game.

I wasn’t going to stop with just one fast-casual falafel joint, not with so many to choose from. Benjyehuda is another of those fast-casual options that I’ve visited a few times, and they’re doing great work.

Benjyehuda, inspired by the street food of Jerusalem but with a helping of Chicago attitude, offers falafel & shawarma on pita, rice, or lettuce, but also offers the familiar fresh-cut fries w/ Merkt’s cheddar option you can find at many of the more typical Chicago-style fast food joints.

Mindy and I visited on a “Spicy Falafel Friday.” I probably should have ordered the regular falafels as more of an apples-to-apples comparison with the others I’d been trying, but I’m a big idiot who will order just about anything if you put the word “Spicy” in front of it.

Benjyehuda wraps the fillings in the pita like a gyros, instead of stuffing the pita like IDOF did. I got mine with hummus, Jerusalem salad, pickles, tahini sauce, and red cabbage. Mindy wasn’t playing along with the falafel thing that day, and ordered chicken shawarma with everything.

You can see that Mindy’s “everything” included an Israeli corn salad, which was an offering unique to Benjyehuda. The quality here was high across the board, and any time I can get Merkt’s cheese fries, I’m happy.

I also took the opportunity to finally check out Naperville-based Naf Naf Grill, which has several downtown Chicago locations. I’ve thought about trying them before, but the nearest location (on Washington between Wacker and Franklin) nearly always has a line out the door. I’ve cracked the code, though–get there on a Monday before 11:30 am and while there’ll still be a line, at least you’ll be waiting inside.

I ordered the falafel sandwich, which again is stuffed into a cut-open pita, with similar selections in terms of sauces and salads. I ordered mine with hummus, pickles, and sumac onions, tahini sauce and their S’Khug sauce, a green chili relish. I also got an order of their fries, which are fresh housemade potato chips.

This was another really enjoyable sandwich. I liked the sour/spicy pungency of the sumac onions, and while the S’khug sauce may not have made the sandwich the most photogenic, it gave everything a nice bright herbal spiciness.

There are others–Zaytune Mediterranean Grill and Roti Mediterranean Grill both come to mind; in fact, if you see the words “Mediterranean Grill” I can almost guarantee a falafel wrap will be on the menu. I think I’ve got the gist of it though. It looks to me like, in order to improve my homemade falafel sandwiches, I’m going to have to up my condiment game.

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Onions

Instead of plain old red onions, how about those sumac onions? They’re easy. Slice an onion super thin (I used my mandoline just as thin as I could set it), then sprinkle a little salt and sumac on them and toss. You don’t even need a recipe really, but I used maybe 3/4 tsp sumac and 1/4 tsp salt per small to medium onion. (Can’t find Sumac at your local? No worries, it’s available on Amazon)

Cucumbers and tomatoes

A cucumber/tomato salad is an enormous upgrade over plain cucumbers and tomatoes, without much additional effort. Slice your cucumber in half and scoop out the seeds, then dice it and a roughly equal volume of tomatoes. Add the juice of half a lemon, a bit of salt, and a small handful of chopped-up parsley. Easy.

Tahini sauce

Let’s pause for a moment–a lot of these recipes are going to involve tahini, so you should have some familiarity with it. Tahini is a paste made of ground-up sesame seeds. It’s like a really intense and bitter peanut butter, but also nothing like that at all. I think it’s pretty easy to find in grocery stores but once again, if you can’t, Amazon has got your back.

Now pay attention, ’cause this one is a bit more involved than the others but absolutely vital. Put half a cup of tahini, the juice of 2 lemons, 3 minced garlic cloves, 1/4 C extra virgin olive oil, and a bit of salt into a blender. Blend until everything is combined–it’s going to look broken and not very smooth. Add water a little at a time until the texture smooths out and the sauce achieves the thickness (or thinness) you desire. You can cut it with a little yogurt if the flavor is too intense for you but why would you? It’s a condiment, you’re not going to eat it straight by the spoonful.

S’Khug

I liked it at Naf Naf so why not? I’m not gonna even pretend that I had a recipe for this dialed in already but I went ahead and found this one that I thought looked pretty good and riffed on it slightly. Basically I took a bunch of cilantro and a bunch of parsley and cut off the majority of the big stems, then put them in a food processor with 10 seeded jalapenos, the crushed cloves of an entire small head of garlic, a tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp coriander seeds, the seeds from 6 cardamom pods, and a couple tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.

Hummus

This is one of those things I can whip up from memory. Drain a can of chickpeas but reserve the liquid. Add them to a blender or food processor with 1/4 cup of tahini, the juice of a lemon, 2 garlic cloves, a little olive oil, a pinch of salt, and a little of the reserved bean liquid. Add some white pepper if you feel like it. Blend until smooth. Add some more liquid if it’s too thick.

Baba Ghanoush

Not a lot different from hummus, but there’s an extra step in that you need to roast the eggplant, and roast it hard. Good baba ghanoush has a bit of a smoky flavor from damn near burning that eggplant. So get yourself a good-sized eggplant, roast it at 450 for 20 minutes or so, then put it under the broiler and blacken the skin really good. Peel the eggplant, cut it lengthwise in quarters, and scrape the seeds out, then chop it up and add it to the food processor with the juice of a lemon, a little salt and pepper, a heaping tablespoon of tahini, and a little olive oil. Blend until smooth

Falafel

By this time you might want to take a break. After all these condiments, you may be tired. Maybe your back is hurting. Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, hey, let’s just buy a sack, like we did the last time. You might even be tempted to use a mix–there are some fine falafel mixes out there that are easy, fast, and make some damn tasty falafels. But hell with it, we’ve come this far–let’s make some homemade falafels too.

Also, let’s change things up a bit. Most falafels, the kind you see in every shop, are the standard Levantine falafels, made with chickpeas, herbs and spices. There’s another type of falafels, though. Egyptian falafels, also called Tamiya, are made with fava beans and human liver.

I’m joking about the human livers. I’d just like to make that clear. Every time I hear the words “fava beans” I think “human liver, nice Chianti.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVlkZVAw8Gc

The fava beans thing is totally true though

I’d never made falafel of either kind before but I had 2 cups of fava beans that had been soaking in water overnight, several bunches of cilantro and parsley, a warmed-up food processor with a freshly-washed bowl, and a couple of hours to kill. Also, a cooler full of human livers.

Again, I’m joking about the livers. I’ll stop, I promise.

I found the basic recipe that I used on this Facebook page. Other recipes I’ve seen are similar but many say to skip the cilantro and use parsley only. Perhaps that would be more authentic but I happen to like cilantro.

I drained the beans, and mixed everything together in my food processor in batches. PROTIP: get as much of the soaking water as you can out of the beans–the onion and herbs will release more than enough water to keep things moist. My falafel mix was too loose and wet, even after adding a few tablespoons of gram flour to soak up the excess and bind everything together. However, by hand-forming the mix into flattish patties one by one and sprinkling on the sesame seeds before transferring them directly into a pan to be deep-fried in batches of 4, I was able to work my way through a large bowl of falafel mix in somewhere north of an hour.

From what I’ve read, Egyptian flatbread, called Baladi, is similar to a whole wheat pita, so I served these Egyptian style falafels, with all the homemade condiments (some of which are probably not 100% true to the Egyptian style sandwich) on whole wheat pitas that I also picked up at Alwatan Bakery.

I may have overdone it slightly with my sandwich–I tried cramming 4 of these disk-shaped falafels in there and ended up splitting my bread a bit too hard, though it pulled back nicely for the glamor shot–but the effort I’d gone to in order to improve my falafel sandwiches was worthwhile. I put a little of everything in mine–again, anything worth doing is worth overdoing–and it all just clicked. The S’Khug is amazing–I’ll need to find more ways to use it, as I’ve got a pretty good-sized Mason jar left over–and the cucumber/tomato salad is a new favorite as well; Mindy has served it with several meals since I first made it. (Neither it nor the sumac onions keep very long though, so just make what you need each time.)

The falafel reheat quite well (350° F for 10 minutes or so, DO NOT attempt to microwave them because that would destroy their texture and ewwww) and a couple of hot fritters on a plate with some hummus, cucumber/tomato salad, S’Khug, pita, and scrambled eggs sounds like a great breakfast. (Note: it turns out I was 100% right about this)

I’ll tell you what though: if I ever have the bright idea to open a sandwich shop that serves falafels, I hope somebody will remind me of this day. After a pretty full day of making condiments and frying falafels I could hardly stand up straight anymore. Several ibuprofens later, I’m feeling much better, but there’s something to be said for a place where you can spend less than 5 minutes and 10 bucks to get a sandwich nearly as good. I just hope somebody starts serving the Egyptian style falafels soon. They’re outstanding.