Falafel

I know this looks good. It wasn't.

Making falafel from scratch didn't seem like it should be too hard. After all, it's just a ball of chick pea mush fried with spices. Unfortunately, like so many simple dishes, it requires a degree of technique and skill that can be difficult to attain. The batter I made tasted good, and it fried up nice and crispy, the problem was, basically, what you see in the picture here had the structure of a Christmas ornament--that is to say, pretty much everything that had been inside the falafel ball disintergrated and leaked out into the oil, so what I was left with were some crunchy, falafel-like shells. Interestingly, a sandwich of pita bread, salad and tatziki with crunchy, falafel-like shells is a pretty damn good meal, but it wasn't what I'd had in mind. Anyway, I'm going to try this again and I'll report back with results. I'm hoping if I use dried, instead of canned chick peas, they'll maintain their integrity a little better.