Baked Sweet Potato Falafel

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Eastern Feastern

This one is especially for Holly who called me at work to ask her to post some veggie recipes - here you go Holly!!

I,ve cut out sugar wheat and dairy for a few weeks in order to fit into last years summer dresses for the big trip to Venice. I'm actually finding it surprisingly pleasant and I'm no where near as hungry as I thought I would be. I think the secret is a nice breakfast (I make my own muesli) then you don't feel too short changed over not being allowed have lovely buttery toast and milky sweet coffee in the morning. Anyway, Lucy sent me a recipe for sweet potato falafel from
Allegra McEvedy's Leon restaurants today, perfect for my silly diet as it has no bad things in it at all. I have changed around the recipe a bit to include white beans and chopped fresh coriander to make it more authentically falafely. I think this might be the ultimate in gluten free, wheat free, sugar free, dairy free food, and best of all, they are baked, not fried. Normal falafel (made with just chickpeas) will be really dry and fall apart if you try to bake it, so this is definitely the ultimate in healthyness, and still most delicious dinner ever. It actually doesn't take that long to make either.

So here goes:


Baked Falafel
1 large sweet potato,
1/2 tin white beans such as butter beans or canellini
1 big handful fresh coriander
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 teaspoon ground cumin
100g Gram Flour (a flour made from lentils available from all good middle eastern shops)
Juice of 1 lemon
glug of olive oil
sesame seeds for garnish

Bake the sweet potato in its skin in a hot oven for about an hour until it is totally soft throughout. mash the beans in a bowl with your fingers, take the cooked sweet potato out of its skin and add to the bowl. Add add the chopped coriander, followed by the rest of the ingredients mix well.


Use two spoons to shape each falafel piece, depositing each one onto a baking sheet covered with greased baking parchment. Sprinkle over some sesame seeds.

Bake in oven preheated to gas 7/220 degrees Celsius for 15 mins or until golden on the bottom and they feel solid to touch. This photo makes them look weird - I'm sorry


We served with:
*Hummus (see previous post) with added harrisa paste
*Natural yogurt with lemon juice, fresh parsley and coriander, salt & pepper
*Cyprus salad (see recipe)
*Chopped beetroot
*Ajvar (Turkish veggie spread made from red peppers great in sandwiches)
*Flat bread (although I didn't have any of this, how good am I?!)

wow! I just saw this video over on Icanhascook - it's brilliant.