Meatless Monday: Red Lentil Falafel

This is my first time making my own falafel and I didn't make them with chick peas but with red lentils. I was actually planning to make red lentil burgers, but Zeronic requested these instead. I loved these home made falafel and they are perfect in a bento, which you can see in my bento from last Wednesday. This recipe comes from the Essential Vegetarian Cookbook. I adjusted it a bit, like I mostly do with recipes. Do mind that this recipe is fairly time consuming, but it leaves you with a lot to stash away for later use :)

Before frying/baking

Red Lentil Falafel (makes 45-50 balls)
- 250 gr red lentils
- 2 spring onions
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tsp cumin
- 80 gr fresh bread crumbs
- 125gr grated cheese
- 1 large courgette
- 150 gr cornstarch
- oil

Cook the red lentils in water. This should take about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, grate the courgette in a large bowl. Chop the spring onions and the garlic in the kitchen machine and add them to the bowl with the cumin, grated cheese and bread crumbs. When the lentils are done drain them and chop half of them in the kitchen machine. Add this and the other half of the lentils to the mixture. Mix everything well. Shake the cornstarch on a plate.

Mixture before rolling

At this point I tool the plate of cornstarch and the bowl with mixture to the living room so I could sit during rolling the balls. Scoop about a tbsp of mixture and roll this into a ball. This should go really smoothly because the mixture is just perfect to work with and didn't stick too much. Roll the ball through the cornstarch to coat. Place the balls on another plate and make about 45-50 balls this way. You can store them in the fridge until you are going to fry them.

For the frying you can just add a layer of oil to the pan, wait until the oil is hot enough (it will form tiny bubbles). Gently place a few balls in the oil, bake them for 1 minute and scoop them out. Lay them on a plate with kitchen towels to drain the moist. Continue this with all the balls. If you don't like to fry them, you can also bake them but you will still need a fair amount of oil.

Red lentil falafel with fries and salad

Serve them with pita bread and garlic sauce, or any yoghurt based sauce. We served them with fries and a salad.

This post is part of Midnight Maniac Meatless Mondays.
MMMM is a weekly carnival dedicated to those interested in improving their personal health and the health of the planet by reducing meat consumption one day a week. Every Monday you have a chance to feature a link to something meatless. It doesn’t have to be a recipe {although that would be nice}, it can be a picture of a meatless meal you ate that week, an interesting article you read about meat consumption, a post on your blog about going meatless, perhaps a post on someone else’s blog you found helpful, anything Meatless Monday appropriate.

Also part of Meatless Mondays at My Sweet and Savory.

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