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najia-cooks · 3 months
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[ID: First image shows large falafel balls, one pulled apart to show that it is bright green and red on the inside, on a plate alongside green chilis, parsley, and pickled turnips. Second image is an extreme close-up of the inside of a halved falafel ball drizzled with tahina sauce. End ID]
فلافل محشي فلسطيني / Falafel muhashshi falastini (Palestinian stuffed falafel)
Falafel (فَلَافِل) is of contested origin. Various hypotheses hold that it was invented in Egypt any time between the era of the Pharoahs and the late nineteenth century (when the first written references to it appear). In Egypt, it is known as طَعْمِيَّة (ṭa'miyya)—the diminutive of طَعَام "piece of food"—and is made with fava beans. It was probably in Palestine that the dish first came to be made entirely with chickpeas.
The etymology of the word "falafel" is also contested. It is perhaps from the plural of an earlier Arabic word *filfal, from Aramaic 𐡐𐡋𐡐𐡉𐡋 "pilpāl," "small round thing, peppercorn"; or from "مفلفل" "mfelfel," a word meaning "peppered," from "فلفل" "pepper" + participle prefix مُ "mu."
This recipe is for deep-fried chickpea falafel with an onion and sumac حَشْوَة (ḥashua), or filling; falafel are also sometimes stuffed with labna. The spice-, aromatic-, and herb-heavy batter includes additions common to Palestinian recipes—such as dill seeds and green onions—and produces falafel balls with moist, tender interiors and crisp exteriors. The sumac-onion filling is tart and smooth, and the nutty, rich, and bright tahina-based sauce lightens the dish and provides a play of textures.
Falafel with a filling is falafel مُحَشّي (muḥashshi or maḥshshi), from حَشَّى‎ (ḥashshā) "to stuff, to fill." While plain falafel may be eaten alongside sauces, vegetables, and pickles as a meal or a snack, or eaten in flatbread wraps or kmaj bread, stuffed falafel are usually made larger and eaten on their own, not in a wrap or sandwich.
Falafel has gone through varying processes of adoption, recognition, nationalization, claiming, and re-patriation in Zionist settlers' writing. A general arc may be traced from adoption during the Mandate years, to nationalization and claiming in the years following the Nakba until the end of the 20th century, and back to re-Arabization in the 21st. However, settlers disagree with each other about the value and qualities of the dish within any given period.
What is consistent is that falafel maintains a strategic ambiguity: particular qualities thought to belong to "Arabs" may be assigned, revoked, rearranged, and reassigned to it (and to other foodstuffs and cultural products) at will, in accordance with broader trends in politics, economics, and culture, or in service of the particular argument that a settler (or foreign Zionist) wishes to make.
Mandate Palestine, 1920s – early '30s: Secular and collective
While most scholars hold that claims of an ancient origin for falafel are unfounded, it was certainly being eaten in Palestine by the 1920s. Yael Raviv writes that Jewish settlers of the second and third "עליות"‎ ("aliyot," waves of immigration; singular "עליה" "aliya") tended to adopt falafel, and other Palestinian foodstuffs, largely uncritically. They viewed Palestinian Arabs as holding vessels that had preserved Biblical culture unchanged, and that could therefore serve as models for a "new," agriculturally rooted, physically active, masculine Jewry that would leave behind the supposed errors of "old" European Jewishness, including its culinary traditions—though of course the Arab diet would need to be "corrected" and "civilized" before it was wholly suitable for this purpose.
Falafel was further endeared to these "חֲלוּצִים‎" ("halutzim," "pioneers") by its status as a street food. The undesirable "old" European Jewishness was associated with the insularity of the nuclear family and the bourgeois laziness of indoor living. The קִבּוּצים‎ ("Kibbutzim," communal living centers), though they represented only a small minority of settlers, furnished a constrasting ideal of modern, earthy Jewishness: they left food production to non-resident professional cooks, eliding the role of the private, domestic kitchen. Falafel slotted in well with these ascetic ideals: like the archetypal Arabic bread and olive oil eaten by the Jewish farmer in his field, it was hardy, cheap, quick, portable, and unconnected to the indoor kitchen.
The author of a 1929 article in דאר היום ("Doar Hyom," "Today's Mail") shows unrestrained admiration for the "[]מזרחי" ("Oriental") food, writing of his purchase of falafel stuffed in a "פיתה" ("pita") that:
רק בני-ערב, ואחיהם — היהודים הספרדים — רק הם עלולים "להכנת מטעם מפולפל" שכזה, הנעים כל כך לחיך [...].
("Only the Arabs, and their brothers—the Sepherdi Jews—only they are likely to create a delicacy so 'peppered' [a play on the פ-ל-פ-ל (f-l-f-l) word root], one so pleasing to the palate".)
Falafel's strong association with "Arabs" (i.e., Palestinians), however, did blemish the foodstuff in the eyes of some as early as 1930. An article in the English-language Palestine Bulletin told the story of Kamel Ibn Hassan's trial for the murder of a British soldier, lingering on the "Arab" "hashish addicts," "women of the streets," and "concessionaires" who rounded out this lurid glimpse into the "underground life lived by a certain section of Arab Haifa"; it was in this context that Kamel's "'business' of falafel" (scare quotes original) was mentioned.
Mandate Palestine, late 1930s–40s: A popular Oriental dish
In 1933, only three licensed falafel vendors operated in Tel Aviv; but by December 1939, Lilian Cornfeld (columnist for the English-language Palestine Post) could lament that "filafel cakes" were "proclaiming their odoriferous presence from every street corner," no longer "restricted to the seashore and Oriental sections" of the city.
Settlers' attitudes to falafel at this time continued to range from appreciation to fascinated disgust to ambivalence, and references continued to focus on its cheapness and quickness. According to Cornfeld, though the "orgy of summertime eating" of which falafel was the "most popular" representative caused some dietary "damage" to children, and though the "rather messy and dubious looking" food was deep-fried, the chickpeas themselves were still of "great nutritional value": "However much we may object to frying, — if fry you must, this at least is the proper way of doing it."
Cornfeld's article, appearing 10 years after the 1929 reference to falafel in pita quoted above, further specifies how this dish was constructed:
There is first half a pita (Arab loaf), slit open and filled with five filafels, a few fried chips [i.e. French fries] and sometimes even a little salad. The whole is smeared over with Tehina, a local mayonnaise made with sesame oil (emphasis original).
The ethnicity of these early vendors is not explicitly mentioned in these accounts. The Zionist "תוצרת הארץ" "totzeret ha’aretz"; "produce of the land") campaign in the 1930s and 1940s recommended buying only Jewish produce and using only Jewish labor, but it did not achieve unilaterial success, so it is not assured that settlers would not be buying from Palestinian vendors. There were, however, also Mizrahi Jewish vendors in Tel Aviv at this time.
The WW2-era "צֶנַע" ("tzena"; "frugality") period of rationing meat, which was enforced by British mandatory authorities beginning in 1939 and persisting until 1959, may also have contributed to the popularity of falafel during this time—though urban settlers employed various strategies to maintain access to significant amounts of meat.
Israel and elsewhere, 1950s – early 60s: The dawn of de-Arabization
After the Nakba (the ethnic cleansing of broad swathes of Palestine in the creation of the modern state of "Israel"), the task of producing a national Israeli identity and culture tied to the land, and of asserting that Palestinians had no like sense of national identity, acquired new urgency. The claiming of falafel as "the national snack of Israel," the decoupling of the dish from any association with "Arabs" (in settlers' writing of any time period, this means "Palestinians"), and the insistence on associating it with "Israel" and with "Jews," mark this time period in Israeli and U.S.-ian newspaper articles, travelogues, and cookbooks.
During this period, falafel remained popular despite the "reintegrat[ion]" of the nuclear family into the "national project," and the attendant increase in cooking within the familial home. It was still admirably quick, efficient, hardy, and frequently eaten outside. When it was homemade, the dish could be used rhetorically to marry older ideas about embodying a "new" Jewishness and a return to the land through dietary habits, with the recent return to the home kitchen. In 1952, Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, the wife of the second President of Israel, wrote to a South African Zionist women's society:
I prefer Oriental dishes and am inclined towards vegetarianism and naturalism, since we are returning to our homeland, going back to our origin, to our climate, our landscape and it is only natural that we liberate ourselves from many of the habits we acquired in the course of our wanderings in many countries, different from our own. [...] Meals at the President's table [...] consist mainly of various kinds of vegetable prepared in the Oriental manner which we like as well as [...] home-made Falafel, and, of course vegetables and fruits of the season.
Out of doors, associations of falafel with low prices, with profusion and excess, and with youth, travelling and vacation (especially to urban locales and the seaside) continue. Falafel as part and parcel of Israeli locales is given new emphasis: a reference to the pervasive smell of frying falafel rounds out the description of a chaotic, crowded, clamorous scene in the compact, winding streets of any old city. Falafel increasingly stands metonymically for Israel, especially in articles written to entice Jewish tourists and settlers: no one is held to have visited Israel unless they have tried real Israeli falafel. A 1958 song ("ולנו יש פלאפל", "And We Have Falafel") avers that:
הַיּוֹם הוּא רַק יוֹרֵד מִן הַמָּטוֹס [...] כְבָר קוֹנֶה פָלָאפֶל וְשׁוֹתֶה גָּזוֹז כִּי זֶה הַמַּאֲכָל הַלְּאֻמִּי שֶׁל יִשְׂרָאֵל
("Today when [a Jew] gets off the plane [to Israel] he immediately has a falafel and drinks gazoz [...] because this is the national dish of Israel"). A 1962 story in Israel Today features a boy visiting Israel responding to the question "Have you learned Hebrew yet?" by asserting "I know what falafel is." Recipes for falafel appear alongside ads for smoked lox and gefilte fish in U.S.-ian Jewish magazines; falafel was served by Zionist student groups in U.S.-ian universities beginning in the 1950s and continuing to now.
These de-Arabization and nationalization processes were possible in part because it was often Mizrahim (West Asian and North African Jews) who introduced Israelis to Palestinian food—especially after 1950, when they began to immigrate to Israel in larger numbers. Even if unfamiliar with specific Palestinian dishes, Mizrahim were at least familiar with many of the ingredients, taste profiles, and cooking methods involved in preparing them. They were also more willing to maintain their familiar foodways as settlers than were Zionist Ashkenazim, who often wanted to distance themselves from European and diaspora Jewish culture.
Despite their longstanding segregation from Israeli Ashkenazim (and the desire of Ashkenazim to create a "new" European Judaism separate from the indolence and ignorance of "Oriental" Jews, including their wayward foodways), Mizrahim were still preferable to Palestinian Arabs as a point of origin for Israel's "national snack." When associated with Mizrahi vendors, falafel could be considered both Oriental and Jewish (note that Sephardim and Mizrahim are unilaterally not considered to be "Arabs" in this writing).
Thus food writing of the 1950s and 60s (and some food writing today) asserts, contrary to settlers' writing of the 1920s and 30s, that falafel had been introduced to Israel by Jewish immigrants from Syria, Yemen, or Morocco, who had been used to eating it in their native countries—this, despite the fact that Yemen and Morocco did not at this time have falafel dishes. Even texts critical of Zionism echoed this narrative. In fact, however, Yemeni vendors had learned to make falafel in Egypt on their way to Palestine and Israel, and probably found falafel already being sold and eaten there when they arrived.Meneley, Anne2007 Like an Extra Virgin. American Anthropologist 109(4):678–687
Meanwhile, "pita" (Palestinian Arabic: خبز الكماج; khubbiz al-kmaj) was undergoing in some quarters a similar process of Israelization; it remained "Arab" in others. In 1956, a Boston-born settler in Haifa wrote for The Jewish Post:
The baking of the pittah loaves is still an Arab monopoly [in Israel], and the food is not available at groceries or bakeries which serve Jewish clientele exclusively. For our Oriental meal to be a success we must have pittah, so the more advance shopping must be done.
This "Arab monopoly" in fact did not extent to an Arab monopoly in discourse: it was a mere four years later that the National Jewish Post and Opinion described "Peeta" as an "Israeli thin bread." Two years after that, the U.S.-published My Jewish Kitchen: The Momales Ta'am Cookbook (co-authored by Zionist writer Shushannah Spector) defined "pitta" as an "Israeli roll."
Despite all this scrubbing work, settlers' attitudes towards falafel in the late 1950s were not wholly positive, and references to the dish as having been "appropriated from the [Palestinian] Arabs" did not disappear. A 1958 article, written by a Boston-born man who had settled in Israel in 1948 and published in U.S.-ian Zionist magazine Midstream, repeats the usual associations of falafel with the "younger set" of visitors from kibbutzim to "urban" locales; it also denigrates it as a “formidably indigestible Arab delicacy concocted from highly spiced legumes rolled into little balls, fried in grease, and then inserted into an underbaked piece of dough, known as a pita.”
Thus settlers were ambivalent about khubbiz as well. If their food writing sometimes refers to pita as "doughy" or "underbaked," it is perhaps because they were purchasing it from stores rather than baking it at home—bakeries sometimes underbake their khubbiz so that it retains more water, since it is sold by weight.
Israel and elsewhere, late 1960s–2010s: Falafel with even fewer Arabs
The sanitization of falafel would be more complete in the 60s and 70s, as falafel was gradually moved out of separate "Oriental dishes" categories and into the main sections of Israeli cookbooks. A widespread return to כַּשְׁרוּת‎ (kashrut; dietary laws) meant that falafel, a פַּרְוֶה (parve) dish—one that contained no meat or dairy—was a convenient addition on occasions when food intersected with nationalist institutions, such as at state dinners and in the mess halls of Israeli military forces.
This, however, still did not prohibit Israelis from displaying ambivalence towards the food. Falafel was more likely to be glorified as a symbol of Jewish Israel in foreign magazines and tourist guides, including in the U.S.A. and Italy, than it was to be praised in Israeli Zionist publications.
Where falafel did maintain an association with Palestinians, it was to assert that their versions of it had been inferior. In 1969, Israeli writer Ruth Bondy opines:
Experience says that if we are to form an affection for a people we should find something admirable about its customs and folklore, its food or girls, its poetry and music. True, we have taken the first steps in this direction [with Palestinians]: we like kebab, hummous, tehina and falafel. The trouble is that these have already become Jewish dishes and are prepared more tastily by every Rumanian restaurateur than by the natives of Nablus.
Opinions about falafel in this case seem to serve as a mirror for political opinions about Palestinians: the same writer had asserted, on the previous page, that the "ideal situation, of course, would be to keep all the territories we are holding today—but without so many Arabs. A few Arabs would even be desirable, for reasons of local color, raising pigs for non-Moslems and serving bread on the Passover, but not in their masses" (trans. Israel L. Taslitt).
Later narratives tended to retrench the Israelization of falafel, often acknowledging that falafel had existed in Palestine prior to Zionist incursion, but holding that Jewish settlers had made significant changes to its preparation that were ultimately responsible for making it into a worldwide favorite. Joan Nathan's 2001 Foods of Israel Today, for example, claimed that, while fava and chickpea falafel had both preëxisted the British Mandate period, Mizrahi settlers caused chickpeas to be the only pulse used in falafel.
Gil Marks, who had echoed this narrative in his 2010 Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, later attributed the success of Palestinian foods to settlers' inventiveness: "Jews didn’t invent falafel. They didn’t invent hummus. They didn’t invent pita. But what they did invent was the sandwich. Putting it all together. And somehow that took off and now I have three hummus restaurants near my house on the Upper West Side.”
Israel and elsewhere, 2000s – 2020s: Re-Arabization; or, "Local color"
Ronald Ranta has identified a trend of "re-Arabizing" Palestinian food in Israeli discourse of the late 2000s and later: cooks, authors, and brands acknowledge a food's origin or identity as "Arab," or occasionally even "Palestinian," and consumers assert that Palestinian and Israeli-Palestinian (i.e., Israeli citizens of Palestinian ancestry) preparations of foods are superior to, or more "authentic" than, Jewish-Israeli ones. Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian brands and restaurants market various foods, including falafel, as "אסלי" ("asli"), from the Arabic "أَصْلِيّ" ("ʔaṣliyy"; "original"), or "בלדי" ("baladi"), from the Arabic "بَلَدِيّ" ("baladiyy"; "native" or "my land").
This dedication to multiculturalism may seem like progress, but Ranta cautions that it can also be analyzed as a new strategy in a consistent pattern of marginalization of the indigenous population: "the Arab-Palestinian other is r­e-colonized and re-imagined only as a resource for tasty food [...] which has been de-politicized[;] whatever is useful and tasty is consumed, adapted and appropriated, while the rest of its culture is marginalized and discarded." This is the "serving bread" and "local color" described by Bondy: "Arabs" are thought of in terms of their usefulness to settlers, and not as equal political participants in the nation. For Ranta, the "re-Arabizing" of Palestinian food thus marks a new era in Israel's "confiden[ce]" in its dominance over the indigenous population.
So this repatriation of Palestinian food is limited insofar as it does not extend to an acknowledgement of Palestinians' political aspirations, or a rejection of the Zionist state. Food, like other indicators and aspects of culture, is a "safe" avenue for engagement with colonized populations even when politics is not.
The acknowledgement of Palestinian identity as an attempt to neutralize political dissent, or perhaps to resolve the contradictions inherent in liberal Zionist identity, can also be seen in scholarship about Israeli food culture. This scholarship tends to focus on narratives about food in the cultural domain, ignoring the material impacts of the settler-colonialist state's control over the production and distribution of food (something that Ranta does as well). Food is said to "cross[] borders" and "transcend[] cultural barriers" without examination of who put the borders there (or where, or why, or how, or when). Disinterest in material realities is cultivated so that anodyne narratives about food as “a bridge” between divides can be pursued.
Raviv, for example, acknowledges that falafel's de-Palestinianization was inspired by anti-Arab sentiment, and that claiming falafel in support of "Jewish nationalism" was a result of "a connection between the people and a common land and history [needing] to be created artificially"; however, after referring euphemistically to the "accelerated" circumstances of Israel's creation, she supports a shared identity for falafel in which it can also be recognized as "Israeli." She concludes that this should not pose a problem for Palestinians, since "falafel was never produced through the labor of a colonized population, nor was Palestinian land appropriated for the purpose of growing chickpeas for its preparation. Thus, falafel is not a tool of oppression."
Palestine and Israel, 1960s – 2020s: Material realities
Yet chickpeas have been grown in Israel for decades, all of them necessarily on appropriated Palestinian land. Experimentation with planting in the arid conditions of the south continues, with the result that today, chickpea is the major pulse crop in the country. An estimated 17,670,000 kilograms of chickpeas were produced in Israel in 2021; at that time, this figure had increased by an average of 3.5% each year since 1966. 73,110 kilograms of that 2021 crop was exported (this even after several years of consecutive decline in chickpea exports following a peak in 2018), representing $945,000 in exports of dried chickpeas alone.
The majority of these chickpeas ($872,000) were exported to the West Bank and Gaza; Palestinians' inability to control their own imports (all of which must pass through Israeli customs, and which are heavily taxed or else completely denied entry), and Israeli settler violence and government expropriation of land, water, and electricity resources (which make agriculture difficult), mean that Palestine functions as a captive market for Israeli exports. Israeli goods are the only ones that enter Palestinian markets freely.
By contrast, Palestinian exports, as well as imports, are subject to taxation by Israel, and only a small minority of imports to Israel come from Palestine ($1.13 million out of $22.4 million of dried chickpeas in 2021).
The 1967 occupation of the West Bank has besides had a demonstrable impact on Palestinians' ability to grow chickpeas for domestic consumption or export in the first place, as data on the changing uses of agricultural land in the area from 1966–2001 allow us to see. Chickpeas, along with wheat, barley, fenugreek, and dura, made up a major part of farmers' crops from 1840 to 1914; but by 2001, the combined area devoted to these field crops was only a third of its 1966 value. The total area given over to chickpeas, lentils and vetch, in particular, shrank from 14,380 hectares in 1966 to 3,950 hectares in 1983.
Part of this decrease in production was due to a shortage of agricultural labor, as Palestinians, newly deprived of land or of the necessary water, capital, and resources to work it—and in defiance of Raviv's assertion that "falafel was never produced through the labor of a colonized population"—sought jobs as day laborers on Israeli fields.
The dearth of water was perhaps especially limiting. Palestinians may not build anything without a permit, which the Israeli military may deny for any, or for no, reason: no Palestinian's request for a permit to dig a well has been approved in the West Bank since 1967. Israel drains aquifiers for its own use and forbids Palestinians to gather rainwater, which the Israeli military claims to own. This lack of water led to land which had previously been used to grow other crops being transitioned into olive tree fields, which do not require as much water or labor to tend.
In Gaza as well, occupation systematically denies Palestinians of food itself, not just narratives about food. The majority of the population in Gaza is food-insecure, as Israel allows only precisely determined (and scant) amounts of food to cross its borders. Gazans rely largely on canned goods, such as chickpeas (often purchased at subsidized rates through food aid programs run by international NGOs), because they do not require scarce water or fuel to prepare—but canned chickpeas cannot be used to prepare a typical deep-fried falafel recipe (the discs would fall apart while frying). There is, besides, a continual shortage of oil (of which only a pre-determined amount of calories are allowed to enter the Strip). Any narrative about Israeli food culture that does not take these and other realities of settler-colonialism into account is less than half complete.
Of course, falafel is far from the only food impacted by this long campaign of starvation, and the strategy is only intensifying: as of December 2023, children are reported to have died by starvation in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Support Palestinian resistance by calling Elbit System’s (Israel’s primary weapons manufacturer) landlord; donating to Palestine Action’s bail fund; buying an e-sim for distribution in Gaza; or donating to help a family leave Gaza.
Equipment:
A meat grinder, or a food processor, or a high-speed or immersion blender, or a mortar and pestle and an enormous store of patience
A pot, for frying
A kitchen thermometer (optional)
Ingredients:
Makes 12 large falafel balls; serves 4 (if eaten on their own).
For the فلافل (falafel):
500g dried chickpeas (1010g once soaked)
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp cumin seeds
1 Tbsp coriander seeds
2 tsp dill seeds (عين جرادة; optional)
1 medium green chili pepper (such as a jalapeño), or 1/2 large one (such as a ram's horn / فلفل قرن الغزال)
2 stalks green onion (3 if the stalks are thin) (optional)
Large bunch (50g) parsley, stems on; or half parsley and half cilantro
2 Tbsp sea salt
2 tsp baking soda (optional)
For the حَشوة (filling):
2 large yellow onions, diced
1/4 cup coarsely ground sumac
4 tsp shatta (شطة: red chili paste), optional
Salt, to taste
3 Tbsp olive oil
For the طراطور (tarator):
3 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp table salt
1/4 cup white tahina
Juice of half a lemon (2 Tbsp)
2 Tbsp vegan yoghurt (لبن رائب; optional)
About 1/4 cup water
To make cultured vegan yoghurt, follow my labna recipe with 1 cup, instead of 3/4 cup, of water; skip the straining step.
To fry:
Several cups neutral oil
Untoasted hulled sesame seeds (optional)
Instructions:
1. If using whole spices, lightly toast in a dry skillet over medium heat, then grind with a mortar and pestle or spice mill.
2. Grind chickpeas, onion, garlic, chili, and herbs. Modern Palestinian recipes tend to use powered meat grinders; you could also use a food processor, speed blender, or immersion blender. Some recipes set aside some of the chickpeas, aromatics, and herbs and mince them finely, passing the knife over them several times, then mixing them in with the ground mixture to give the final product some texture. Consult your own preferences.
To mimic the stone-ground texture of traditional falafel, I used a mortar and pestle. I found this to produce a tender, creamy, moist texture on the inside, with the expected crunchy exterior. It took me about two hours to grind a half-batch of this recipe this way, so I don't per se recommend it, but know that it is possible if you don't have any powered tools.
3. Mix in salt, spices, and baking soda and stir thoroughly to combine. Allow to chill in the fridge while you prepare the filling and sauce.
If you do not plan to fry all of the batter right away, only add baking soda to the portion that you will fry immediately. Refrigerate the rest of the batter for up to 2 days, or freeze it for up to 2 months. Add and incorporate baking soda immediately before frying. Frozen batter will need to be thawed before shaping and frying.
For the filling:
1. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Fry onion and a pinch of salt for several minutes, until translucent. Remove from heat.
2. Add sumac and stir to combine. Add shatta, if desired, and stir.
For the tarator:
1. Grind garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle (if you don't have one, finely mince and then crush the garlic with the flat of your knife).
2. Add garlic to a bowl along with tahina and whisk. You will notice the mixture growing smoother and thicker as the garlic works as an emulsifier.
3. Gradually add lemon juice and continue whisking until smooth. Add yoghurt, if desired, and whisk again.
4. Add water slowly while whisking until desired consistency is achieved. Taste and adjust salt.
To fry:
1. Heat several inches of oil in a small or medium pot to about 350 °F (175 °C). A piece of batter dropped in the oil should float and immediately form bubbles, but should not sizzle violently. (With a small pot on my gas stove, my heat was at medium-low).
2. Use your hands or a large falafel mold to shape the falafel.
To use a falafel mold: Dip your mold into water. If you choose to cover both sides of the falafel with sesame seeds, first sprinkle sesame seeds into the mold; then apply a flat layer of batter. Add a spoonful of filling into the center, and then cover it with a heaping mound of batter. Using a spoon, scrape from the center to the edge of the mold repeatedly, while rotating the mold, to shape the falafel into a disc with a slightly rounded top. Sprinkle the top with sesame seeds.
To use your hands: wet your hands slightly and take up a small handful of batter. Shape it into a slightly flattened sphere in your palm and form an indentation in the center; fill the indentation with filling. Cover it with more batter, then gently squeeze between both hands to shape. Sprinkle with sesame seeds as desired.
3. Use a slotted spoon or kitchen spider to lower falafel balls into the oil as they are formed. Fry, flipping as necessary, until discs are a uniform brown (keep in mind that they will darken another shade once removed from the oil). Remove onto a wire rack or paper towel.
If the pot you are using is inclined to stick, be sure to scrape the bottom and agitate each falafel disc a couple seconds after dropping it in.
4. Repeat until you run out of batter. Occasionally use a slotted spoon or small sieve to remove any excess sesame seeds from the oil so they do not burn and become acrid.
Serve immediately with sauce, sliced vegetables, and pickles, as desired.
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This is yoghurt. I found him on the street. Yoghurt doesn't understand what personal space is.
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hear me out
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Do you guys think Rue OneShot likes yoghurt
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Advertisement for Gay Lea fruit yogourt (1986).
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one-time-i-dreamt · 1 year
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I was taking an exam and the only question was, “What are three synonyms for yoghurt,” and it turns out there are none so that was fun.
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life-spire · 1 month
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16woodsequ · 4 months
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Sunday Steve - Day Three
Things that would be new or unfamiliar to Steve in the 21st century, either due to the time period he grew up in, or his social-economic status and other such factors.
Day Three: Yogurt
Although yogurt has a long history, it is possible Steve didn't eat much of it. At least not in the typical format we expect.
Yogurt was introduced to America in the 1900s and was available in tablet form for "those with digestive intolerance and for home culturing". (Link) (John Kellogg used it for enemas too.)
In New England, the main consumers in the 1930s were Near Eastern immigrants. The first yogurt factory to open in the States was in 1942. Yogurt was popularized in the 50s as a health food and sold in pharmacies.
But was still too sour for most people. This is when added fruit preserves became more common place and yogurt became a common American food in the late 20th century (around the 70s).
If Steve ever did try yogurt (maybe for health reasons) he probably didn't like it because "During the 1920s and 1930s, yogurt milk was described as having poor flavor because of its high acidity". It would have also probably been thinner than the thick 'greek' yogurt we are used to.
But most likely Steve never ate, possibly never even heard of yogurt. They did eat it more in Europe so he could have heard of it there during the war.
Sunday Steve Masterpost
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cathacker13 · 9 months
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Today I took my favorite photo ever
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1xings · 8 months
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____Gakki
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visualbite · 1 year
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Paris Style Shawarma Pita Sandwich
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najia-cooks · 1 year
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[ID: A large, shallow bowl filled with a bright yellow curd and golden brown pakora garnished with cilantro. A small bowl of jeera rice with green cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaf, and cilantro sits to the right. End ID.]
Vegan Punjabi kadhi pakora / ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਕੜ੍ਹੀ ਪਕੌੜਾ 
Kadhi is a comfort food popular in north and central India and southeast Pakistan. The base of the dish is spiced curd or buttermilk, to which chickpea flour, vegetable fritters, and spiced tadkas (temperings) are sometimes added. Unlike the sweeter, thinner, and unadorned variations to the south, Punjabi kadhi is slowly reduced to a thick, creamy consistency and studded with onion pakoras.
Recipe under the cut!
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For the pyaaz ke pakore (onion fritters):
1 cup besan (chickpea flour)
2 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp table salt
1/2 tsp mirchi (ground red chilis)
1/2 tsp ajwain (carom seeds)
A couple cups of a neutral oil, for frying
For the curd:
1 cup (220g) unflavored vegan yoghurt
1/2 cup (60g) besan
1/2 tsp amchur (dried mango powder; optional)
4 cups water
In Punjab, kadhi is often made with full-fat buttermilk, and sometimes with yoghurt. Vegan yoghurt (I used oat) will provide a similarly smooth, fatty, slightly sour base.
Adding less water to the curd mixture will allow it to cook down faster if you’re short on time; but a long, slow simmer is more typical with this dish.
For the kadhi:
2 Tbsp neutral oil
Pinch hing (asafoetida)
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2-inch piece (20g) ginger, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 green chilis, chopped
2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds (methi)
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp mirchi (ground red chilis)
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp garam masala
3/4 tsp table salt, or to taste
Mustard oil is typical, but any neutral oil (sunflower, canola, vegetable) will work.
For the tadka (optional):
1 Tbsp non-dairy margarine
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 dried red chili
1/2 tsp mirchi
Instructions:
1. Start the pakore. Cut onions in half through the root and lay cut-side down. Slice thinly vertically (perpendicular to the root) and then cut the root off. Whisk together other pakora ingredients (except for the oil) in a large bowl; add the onions and toss well to combine. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes to allow onions to release moisture.
2. Make the curd mixture. Whisk yoghurt and besan together in a large bowl. Add amchur (or substitute apple cider vinegar) if the yoghurt you are using is not particularly sour, to taste. Add water and whisk until a smooth mixture forms. Set aside.
3. Make the kadhi. Heat 2 Tbsp of a neutral oil in a large pot on medium-high. Fry fenugreek and cumin seeds for a few minutes until they are fragrant and popping into the air.
4. Add hing and cook for 30 seconds. Add onion, chili, and salt and saute for 3-4 minutes, until onion is translucent.
5. Add ginger and garlic and sauté for 30 seconds to a minute, until no longer raw-smelling. Add coriander, mirchi, and turmeric and sauté another 30 seconds.
6. Add the curd mixture and stir to combine. Allow to come to a boil, then lower the heat to low and allow it to cook, stirring occasionally, for 30-45 minutes, until thickened.
7. Meanwhile, finish the pakore. Stir the onion slices to distribute any moisture they may have released. Add just enough water to hydrate all the besan and allow the pakoras to hold together.
8. Heat about an inch of neutral oil on medium in a large pan. Once hot, drop small handfuls of pakora mixture into the oil. Fry, flipping once, until golden brown on both sides. Remove onto a paper-towel-lined plate or wire rack.
9. Add pakoras to the kadhi, along with garam masala, and allow to simmer for another 5-10 minutes until kadhi is very thick and creamy. Remove into a serving dish.
10. Make the tadka. Heat margarine in a small skillet until sizzling. Add cumin seeds, chili pepper, and mirchi and heat until fragrant. Pour the oil, seeds, and chili over the finished kadhi and serve immediately.
Serve with roti, paratha, rice, or jeera rice.
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food-pngs · 9 days
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transparent yogurt pngs?
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Wasn't sure what kind of yoghurts you were looking for, so I went with as many as I could find acceptable quality pics for 👍
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noosphe-re · 11 months
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Etymology of ‘yogurt’
yogurt (n.)
also yoghurt, 1620s, a mispronunciation of Turkish yogurt, in which the -g- is a "soft" sound, in many dialects closer to an English "w." The root yog means roughly "to condense" and is related to yogun"intense," yogush "liquify" (of water vapor), yogur "knead."
—Etymonline
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Ok blend this
*hands you some Yogurt, oranges, lemons, and grapefruit*
Citrus Smoothie
Yogurt, Oranges, Lemons, and Grapefruit from Real Life are being blended!!
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You cannot save them.
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buffetlicious · 6 months
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McDonald’s Singapore went back to the past and brought back the samurai - Samurai Burgers, that is. This limited time promotion featured Japanese-inspired burgers with beef or chicken patty dipped in teriyaki sauce between sesame buns. I got the Samurai Beef Special set which came with the beef burger, large Seaweed McShaker Fries and a small iced green tea for S$10.45. The burger is kind of messy with dripping teriyaki sauce but the juicy beef patty coated with the savoury sweet sauce made it worth getting my hands dirty.
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Also bought the White Peach Yoghurt Pie (S$1.80) to go with the set meal. Sweet and fragrant bites of white peach in creamy white yoghurt custard encased in a warm crispy pastry crust. I won’t mind going for a second piece anytime.
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Selected images and video from McDonald’s Singapore.
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