FALAFEL PITA WITH CUCUMBER SAUCE

Falafel Pita with Cucumber Sauce image

Make this for your friends. They won't believe that it didn't come from that little Mediterranean place around the corner. This is a great recipe to partially prepare in advance and refrigerate until you're ready to cook and eat, but once you cook the falafel, it's best to eat it right away. This sauce is good on anything from veggies to bread. I like to make extra just for snacking on.

Yield serves 4

Number Of Ingredients 13

Ingredients

1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas
1 onion
5 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 tablespoons flour
Salt and pepper
Canola oil for frying
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cucumber
1 carrot
1 tomato
2 pieces pita bread

Steps:

Pour the chickpeas into a colander and rinse under cold water. Let drain for 10 minutes. Place the chickpeas in a bowl and smash them well with a fork or a potato masher, if you have one, until they are the consistency of dense, grainy mashed potatoes. Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic, or pass the garlic through a garlic press. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the chopped onion and 1 teaspoon of the chopped garlic for the sauce and add the remainder of each to the mashed chickpeas. Stir in the parsley, cumin, and flour until they are completely combined. Season with salt and pepper and mix well. Form the mixture into small balls about the size of ping-pong balls, and press them gently between your palms to flatten slightly into patties.
Pour about 1 inch of oil into a deep skillet or large saucepan and place over medium-high heat until very hot (about 350°F). (A tiny drop of water flicked into the pan should immediately cause the oil to bubble up.) Carefully add a few of the patties to the oil using a slotted spoon. Make sure not to crowd the patties in the pan. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes on each side, or until golden brown. Remove to a plate lined with several layers of paper towels to drain and repeat the process with the remaining patties.
Place the sour cream in a bowl and add the reserved onion and garlic. Peel the cucumber and cut it in half lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds with a spoon and cut the cucumber into thin slices. Stir the cucumber into the sour cream and season with salt and pepper.
Peel and grate the carrot. Cut the tomato in half, remove the seeds by scraping them out of the tomato with a small tool or your finger, and chop into 1/2-inch pieces. Cut the pita breads in half and open the pockets. Place 3 or 4 falafel in each pocket and spoon on some of the cucumber sauce. Top with some of the grated carrot and tomato and serve immediately.
Temperature control is the key to nongreasy frying: if your oil is hot enough when you add the food, and if it stays hot enough, the food will cook fast and absorb a surprisingly small amount of oil. Fry the food in batches to keep the pan uncrowded-adding a lot of food to the pan can cool the oil down too much.