You'll have to understand I'm both unskilled in the kitchen and also pretty new there. Cooking is not an assertion of my control over the ingredients or a knowledge of interacting flavors, it is a fucking fight. A fight where science, nature, and manufacturing are all teaming up against me and I am losing. Nothing quite highlights this so much as the bean fritter, my arch nemesis. I've tried a black bean and corn meal fritter several times with mixed results and just got off an abomination of a fallafel attempt.
Now the recipe I used called for a food processor to mix the ingredients into a smooth batter. I don't have a food processor, so I minced all the ingredients then mashed them together for a very, very long time. I got a nice, sticky batter out of it which I refrigerated for about 24 hours. The next day I made disks about two inches in diameter and a half an inch thick, then refrigerating it while I heated the oil. I don't have a thermometer, so I tossed a pinch of the leftover batter in the oil to test it, when it sizzled like a good fried food should, I added two of the fallafel pieces. They disintegrated entirely.
My question is: Why? If you need more information like the ingredients I'll post them. Right now I'm trying to salvage the remainder of the fallafel by baking it. I have no idea what's going to happen, but it's a better bet than trusting that fucking oil again.
I'll need a more specified list of the ingredients and amounts used.
2 cups chickpeas
1 medium onion
1/2 cup of parsley (pissed about losing this, I don't have much left on my plant)
1/2 cup of cilantro
8 cloves garlic
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp cardamon
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 1/2 - 2" of vegetable oil in a medium sized pot
I added the fallafel two patties at a time
To be honest, I'm pretty sure it was the lack of food processor. Those blades spin hundreds of times a second. I don't think any amount of hand mixing will puree the beans enough.
There may be a few reasons they are falling apart:
1)They ingredients still aren't bound together. I'm not sure if you used fresh chickpeas or canned; either way, the less liquid that is present is better. If you wanted to "help it along", you could add a beaten egg.
2)The oil may not have been the right temperature: 350 degrees or a little higher. If you don't have a thermometer, just wait until the oil shimmers and then add a pinch of the batter. When it sizzles immediately, sinks about halfway to the bottom, then rises to the top, the oil is ready. If it sinks and stays down, the oil is too cold; if it doesn't sink at all, the oil is too hot.
The lack of a food processor makes sense. I always figured that people made these kinds of things before food processors were around, but they probably used tools better made for puree than a masher.
I cooked the chickpeas myself, they are a bit soft. I'll have to keep the egg thing in mind.
The oil temperature was definitely off then. When I added the batter it sank to the bottom. If I'm ever daring enough to attempt this again I'll have to keep these things in mind.
Thanks.
The baking was quasi-successful. They're edible, which is a bonus, because I hate throwing away food. They're very crumbly, so if I use them in a sandwich I'll have to make sure it's well wrapped. Taste wise they're pretty good, I overdid it on the salt a touch. They'll make a good salad crumble or wrap filling, I guess.
I put them in a 375 degree oven for close to an hour.
It's true, you can make it without a food processor. The more research I'm doing, the more it's sounding like your batter may have been too wet, and the oil wasn't hot enough. You might want to spread the batter on a pan and leave it out overnight to dry it out a bit.
Why would wetness be a problem? I thought that a wetter batter would be stickier and hold together better?
I'm not exactly sure, but I think it has to do with the proteins and starches not adhering to each other.
first off, adding a beaten egg is almost surely going to solve your problem. it'll make stuff stick. think of pancakes, that batter is pretty damn wet, but it still holds together when cooked. that's cause of the egg.
however, if the recipe doesn't call for egg, there should be a possibility of making it hold together without egg. I almost certainly think this has to do with the consistency of your batter. depending on the amounts of water (or milk etc) and oil (or butter) in your batter, it will look like the following:
- fluid, like pancake batter: lots of water
- sticky: high amount of water, some oil
- less sticky but still like paste: less water, more oil
- a bit sticky but comes loose from the bowl: slightly too much water
- not quite sticky and comes loose from the bowl: probably just the right amount of water and oil
- crumbly: not enough of either
- flaky or has little rolls in it: barely enough water or oil, add a bit more of both or either
- powder: dry :)
there's probably more states of batter. you can easily explore them by combining different amounts of olive oil, water and flour. if you start with small amounts and work until you get "not sticky + comes loose from the bowl" you end up with great pizza dough :) [form a ball and let it rest for half an hour so the gluten can form their elastic bonds before using it]
I'm not sure if you can get this consistency with the chickpeas though, lacking flour. But check what the recipe asks for.
but, if like LMNO says, it's the oil temperature, there's another thing you gotta remember. if you throw in a refridgerated falafel slice, the temperature will drop very quickly, but only in the oil directly around the cold falafel bit. so the trick is to move the oil around a bit, to spread the temperature loss until it's back up to heat again. don't move the falafel pieces themselves, just carefully slush the hot oil around them a bit.
Also, get yourself a "blender-on-a-stick" (I forget what these things are called in English), they're not expensive and tremendously versatile, and will fullfill most of your foodprocessing needs, blend pastes, soups, butter, smoothies, pasta sauce and stuff like that. only thing they won't do is kneed dough, you need a mixer with those spirally dough curls for that. or your hands.
Quote"blender-on-a-stick" (I forget what these things are called in English)
immersion blender
<------NERD!
Quote from: Squid on July 10, 2009, 03:26:08 AM
Quote"blender-on-a-stick" (I forget what these things are called in English)
immersion blender
<------NERD!
We all knew it, but why ruin blender-on-a-stick as a kitchen appliance?
Thanks for the write up, 000, I think I fell into the too much water category. Actually as I tightly packed the fallafel together a little bit of bean juice dripped out of it.
The funny thing is that in spite of being a poor cook, I'm not too shabby of a baker. If these bean fritters just had flour in them I might be able to handle them a bit better.
Overall it wasn't a complete waste. I just had some really involved salad toppers. They did a fantastic job of that.
(http://imgur.com/5cT7r.jpg)
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on July 10, 2009, 03:33:55 AM
Quote from: Squid on July 10, 2009, 03:26:08 AM
Quote"blender-on-a-stick" (I forget what these things are called in English)
immersion blender
<------NERD!
We all knew it, but why ruin blender-on-a-stick as a kitchen appliance?
Thanks for the write up, 000, I think I fell into the too much water category. Actually as I tightly packed the fallafel together a little bit of bean juice dripped out of it.
The funny thing is that in spite of being a poor cook, I'm not too shabby of a baker. If these bean fritters just had flour in them I might be able to handle them a bit better.
Overall it wasn't a complete waste. I just had some really involved salad toppers. They did a fantastic job of that.
Going forward, you can add flour to the batter if it's too wet... they even sell chickpea flour, so you can stay consistent.
Quote from: Squid on July 10, 2009, 03:26:08 AM
Quote"blender-on-a-stick" (I forget what these things are called in English)
immersion blender
<------NERD!
AKA "Wand blender"