Friday favourites – falafels

I love falafels, in every shape and form. On Friday, I made a variation of the classic recipe, using sweet potatoes.

Sweet potato falafels, with a bit of haloumi in the background

First of all, find your sweet potatoes. Confusingly, these are not kept with the potatoes in my local ‘supermarché’, nor even with the vegetables. When I eventually asked the friendly f&v section guy, he took me over to the exotic fruits!

The original recipe (from Delicious magazine) says to cook the sweet potatoes in the microwave. Instead I peeled the spuds and boiled them until they were soft – just less than 20 minutes. It also uses a packet of seasoned Parmesan cheese, which is readily available from a certain supermarket chain on the Islands, but of course not here. I omitted this altogether and just rolled the falafels in a little extra flour.

I used:

350g sweet potatoes (cos that's how much is in a packet)

one 400g tin of chickpeas

2 tablespoons of flour

zest of one lemon

seasoning

1 teaspoon each of paprika, cumin and ground corriander

To serve: haloumi cheese, pita breads, yogurt dressing (Greek yogurt, grated cucumber, fresh mint, salt and pepper), salad, chopped tomatoes.

I tipped all the ingredients into a bowl and mashed until broken down but not pureed. I then rolled these into about 15 balls and rolled these in a little extra flour. As everything is already cooked, all you need to do is colour them and heat through in a little oil in a frying pan, which takes about 6 minutes. You can also grill them.

Another of my favourite things is fried haloumi cheese (the only places I’ve seen this for sale is at the market on Pl Dumon in Wolwe St Pierre – there is a Greek Cypriot stall on the road leading away from the place, towards the ring, and in the Delhaize in Braine l’Alleud). I fry this without oil, with a sprinkling of rosemary and chilli until brown on both sides – it takes about 4 minutes in all.