Falafels, an ode to the Glorious Channa

Chickpea/Channa, wondrous Legume, oozing versatility.

We use you in glorious ways, from hummus to Falafel goodness.

Even plain, with curry and cumin, your flavorful facets are revealed,

And you're not found wanting;

You're wanted.

We've never felt this way before about small beans.

How can we explain it with mere words,

With verbs and nouns, with adjectives and alliterations?

Fried or pressured, you let us into your delectable, disguised world,

And all I daresay,

Is try then enjoy.

These are bomb.

Ingredients:

Prepared Channa (chickpeas) (either from can or soaked then pressured)

Broadleaf Thyme

4 cloves of Garlic

An Onion

Egg

Oil (a little to saute, then a fair amount to fry)

Squeeze in half a lime (optional)

Crushed crackers (we use Crix) or Breadcrumbs

Directions:

Saute the Onion and Garlic Then Mash up the Channa/chickpeas in a large bowl adding the thyme (you can even use Guyanese Celery, or parsley), garlic, onion and lime. Then add in the egg and continue mashing.

Add in the Breadcrumbs or crushed crackers to thicken the eggy, channa mixture.

Roll up (using a Tsp or Tbsp) the falafel mixture s into either balls or thick disks with your hands.

While you're mashing and rolling, heat up oil in the Kaharee (or some other frying mechanism) in preparation of deep frying your falafels.

When the oil is hot, drop your balls/ovals it. Let them fry on all sides for about 3-4 minutes or until they're brown and hard.

Enjoy!!

*We've used these falafels in two ways. The first time we made some Roti, and wrapped the falafels in them with some cucumber, lettuce, tomato, and cream cheese (since we didn't have cucumber yogurt sauce). The next time, we just made a fresh salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, carrot, little cheese) and crumbled the falafels on top of the greens, and made a homemade vinaigrette (olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and some spices) This was really, really good. (if only we had some feta cheese....)

-TT

Hummus

As we’ve mentioned so many times before, Guyana has a lot of chick-peas, a.k.a. channa. We’ve dreamt of creating hummus for a while since channa is the primary ingredient, but never really took the steps to make it happen. Until now. We were feeling the slump; a proverbial culinary one. It took several conversations with current volunteers, a few looks at the Internet, and a desire for change to make it happen. And it did. For the betterment of men and womenkind...well, at least, for the Linden 4. Since there is no worse slump than one of culinary proportions.

Channa (Chick Peas either in a can, or as we do it, dried, that have been soaked for 8 hours.)

About a 1 1/2 cups of either the canned channa water, or your water from when you boiled the channa.

4-5 cloves of garlic, cut up a bit

1 Red or White Onion, cut up

Olive oil (round about 2-3 tbsp)

1-1.5 tbsp of Peanut butter (better if it’s natural flavored as opposed to artificially sweetened; better yet if you have tahini sauce. We don’t. But if you want to send us some. Please do!)

Geerah (or as you Am-ER-icans say Cumin.)

X (What is X, you ask? Well it's what you want. We’ve used some green olives the storekeeper near us bought, but we’ve also put some pesto in here. Maybe if you’re feeling it..some curry powder (hmm I’ll have to try that). Basically experiment, I know we will!)



Soak and boil your channa (or just open the can, and put them in the blender)
Combine the ingredients in a blender (or food processor if you’re so lucky). Blend on a lower speed to make sure it’s flowing. You can even switch it to a higher gear if you’re feeling it. Anyway, eventually all will be blended and all will be good.
You can even salt to taste.

-T & C