Fire-y Falafel

My profuse apologies to followers of Rate My Falafel for the recent gap in the production of falafel based reviews. It turns out that sleeping on sofas/caravans with no internet isn’t entirely conducive to regular reviews.

Now bored out of my brain in the village my parents live in, where the rain is endless and torrential (very far from Spain now), I thought I’d regale you all with a flurry of falafel-ly ramblings.

Firey Falafel

Before I left Granada, and after criticising so many falafels during my stay, I thought it only fair to make some of my own. After all, I’d managed to make some pretty special ones with crazy 7 dog man, why couldn’t I replicate that amazing recipe? My falafel would be far superior to any of the microwaved or soggy wraps that had failed to capture my imagination during my 9 month stay in Granada. I got to work. I had invited some friends over for the occasion, but I also still had some packing to do so I needed to be quick. Using a frankly crap hand held blender, I was able to make reasonable looking falafel balls – see recipe displayed in an earlier post. I made sure to include a shit tonne of coriander, and the balls were reasonably well held together and a nice green colour.

I put the pan with the oil onto our gas stove and popped into my bedroom to grab my phone. Immediately distracted by being in another room, I started frantically shoving clothes into bags and sorting out my stuff. 5 minutes later, smelling smoke, I remembered the falafel.

Of course I’d set the pan of oil on fire. The kitchen was entirely full of smoke and the flames were creeping up the walls. I did use to be a ‘Fire Officer Steward’ at festivals. My entire job was to put out fires. However, apparently I don’t perform well under pressure, despite what I might claim on my CV. All my training deserted me. As did the Spanish for ‘fire’ and ‘help’. I ran into living room that was full of my stoned Spanish house mates and their friends.

‘Ahhhh!’ I said, jumping up and down like a mad woman. They looked at me grinning. “ermmm. Rapido! Help!” I gestured that they follow me to the kitchen where pan was even more on fire. Someone shouted “Water”, which didn’t seem right, and someone else immediately replied “Nooooo!”, which was lucky, as it was a gas fire. A sensible person, name of Cezar, was able to cover it with a cloth and the fire went out. We all laughed, breathing sighs of relief, and opening all the doors and windows to get rid of the thick black smoke. My legs felt shaky. How could I be so stupid? The
falafel party would be ruined. The others went back to the living room and I went to move the pan seeing what I could salvage.

“Ahhhhh!!” The pan caught fire again, this time taking the tea towel with it. I ran back into the living room, waving my arms like a Sims character, the one that dies cos it refuses to call the fre brigade or leave the house. “ I don;t even know the number for the emergency services,, even if I could use a phone while shaking this much” I thought. I envisioned the whole flat going up in flames, taking us and the other flats with it, then the entire row of houses. It was so hot it would spread like wild fire, I exaggerated, whilst doing nothing to put the fire out. Happily, Cezar, the saviour of us all, once again stepped in a put another towel on it before putting in the sink with cold water running. The walls were covered in thick black burn marks, which reached the ceiling. Falafel party was off.

Needless to say, I was too scared to use the hob ever again, and had to oven cook the falafel. They were dry and shit.

Lessons Learnt? Just go to your local friendly falafel shop, and let the professionals do it. And stop complaining.