The quest for Drooling self sufficiency goes on. Fearlessly we move towards a nirvana, a perfect world in which the clan Drooling will be dependent on NO-ONE for the essentials of life!
In my last post, below, I outlined the genius masterplan for replacing puny shop-bought alcohol with the finest home-grown wines a man can produce. In just a few years I shall have ditched poor-quality beers and wines in favour of a world class cellar of Chateau Drooling.
And so on to the next challenge: what is the next culinary element of the current Drooling lifestyle to be replaced?
Let’s think this through logically. At the moment: go out for beers and drink far too many. In future: replace with home-grown wine. At present: stagger home from supplier of beer and fall into kebab shop for Chicken Shish Kebab to replace electrolytes cruelly removed from system by said beer. And in future? Hmmm….
Now at present the raising of poultry to provide the above Chicken Shish is strictly forbidden by Mrs Drooling on the grounds of Bird Flu. The logical alternative would be the acquisition of a pig with which to provide the family Drooling with an endless supply of Doner meat. However if chickens are a no go then it’s just possible that the current noise around Swine Flu is likely to reduce the chances of Mrs D signing off the arrival of a large smelly porker in the garden.
And she’s also a vegetarian. And in any case we have loads of broad beans that need eating up. And she’s quite partial to a falafel. And….hey! Wait a minute!
Enough of the subtle lead in. What follows is pretty much the only recipe we’ve used for our broad beans this year. It’s a Jamie at Home recipe, with a slight tweak. While the mockney genius suggests eating these as fritters, we stick ’em in pittas with salad and slosh some tahini over them to make more of a meal. Many other sauces are just as tasty, and most of them don’t look like emulsion paint when you take a photo of them, but unfortunately it was tahini night when I had the battery in the camera.
(Don’t know why I’m beating myself up: follow the link to Jamie’s page above and you’ll see his fritters look like dog turds…..)
Broan bean falafels
300g broad beans (once podded. About 1kg in pods)
bunch of coriander, bunch of mint
1tsp cumin
1 red chili, deseeded
zest and juice of a lemon
1tbsp flour
About 1l of vegetable oil
Whizz up everything in the blender. Put the oil in pan that’s small enough to make it about 5cm deep and heat it up until it’s hot enough to deep fry. Shape the mixture into balls no bigger than golf balls and drop them in. They cook within a minute or two. Keep the first few batches warm in the oven while you do the rest.
Serve them in pittas with salad or whatever else you want. NB: make sure you get the proportions right in the recipe. I was a bit casual the other day and the falafels all disintegrated in the oil. Perfectly tasty but not quite so easy on the eye.
On the ipod while deep frying: Graham Coxon / All over me. The tahini, that is. Wasn’t paying attention.
The drooling vegetable 
August 1, 2009 at 9:10 am
Hi I found your blog via http://allotment2kitchen.blogspot.com/
and plan to stick around and your style of writing is so very giggly it makes me smile I love it.
PS that broadbean recipe is a Keeper 🙂
August 1, 2009 at 10:58 am
My kind of grub, yours looks really good and far more allealing to the eye, compared to that of Mr J.O. Giv eme some anytime.
August 4, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Sorry that’s a typo – the allealing, should read ‘appealing to the eye’ but you knew that already, didn’t you?!