Falafel burgers

Sometimes Binks likes to cook... so long as it involves chickpeas.  I'm not complaining, I am a fan of chickpeas. Today he's trying his hand at something new, after various iterations of hummus that we've had in the past few months (roasted pepper, chilli, spinach etc).  Today, he wanted to make falafel.  Falafel burgers to be more exact. Including the gluten free burger buns to go with them.  Heck, I am all for encouraging that kind of cooking.

I've got a falafel recipe that I've used a few times before.  It's really easy, and tastes great, so we decided to use that, but instead of deep frying the falafel, we're going to bake the burger-sized patties.  I hope it works. Baked falafel has worked before, and it's so much more healthy than deep fried (besides, my deep fryer went on the fritz last time we used it for falafel and I haven't got a replacement yet).

Ingredients

250g chickpeas, soaked overnight

1 small red onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tsp ground corriander*

2 tsp ground cumin*

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

3 Tbsp chopped fresh coriander or parsley

Method

Drain the chickpeas and whiz in the food processor until they're a fairly fine paste. Add the onion and garlic and process again to finely chop and disperse through the chickpeas. Add the spices, salt, baking powder and coriander.  Process again.  It's important to get the chickpeas into a fine paste so that they cook quickly and don't taste too bitty.

Shape into falafel or burger patties (!) and either deep fry in hot oil for a few minutes until browned, or bake in a fairly hot oven for about half an hour.

* A note on the spices: I only have whole coriander and cumin seeds in the house, and I have a spice grinder, so I just bung in the spices I need when I need them and grind them.  The flavour of freshly ground spices is far superior to anything that's been sitting around for a while in a jar or tub.