I love frying falafel lot! And so, my kitchen was my playground as I experimented with approximately 10 lbs of falafel mixture. I wanted to answer:

• Are garbanzo or fava beans better for a smooth texture?
• Does soaking either in a 1% alkaline solution (water + baking soda) ease food processing?
• Will baking powder lose its potency if added sooner rather than later?

Almost 200 falafel later, I have answers to these and other questions I didn’t even know I had.

Are Garbanzo or Fava Beans Better?

This one is easy! Garbanzo beans quickly revealed themselves as the superior bean not only regarding texture, but also workload and flavor. Fava beans yield similarly soft falafel as long as you commit to one of two forms of tedium:

1. peeling them, or
2. scraping the sides of your food processor until you just can’t take it anymore.

I also find unsimmered fava beans retain their raw - AKA grassy and beany - flavor even after frying or baking them. It’s not entirely unpleasant! However, it does override the more subtle grassiness of the fresh parsley.

Does Soaking Beans with Baking Soda Ease Food Processing?

Baking soda upleveled my falafel in unpredictable ways! No, it did not make processing easier. It likewise had no effect on shaping or frying.

Color, Outside and In

In fact, the differences between 100 falafel made with alkalized water-soaked beans and those made with pure water-soaked beans were neither immediate nor obvious. As I fried batch after batch, however, I noticed more color development in the former. They were demonstrating the pretzel effect!

Yet more surprisingly (though just as logically), the insides of these falafel were slightly greener. Acid dulls green produce, and since baking soda raises pH, it protected the vibrancy of my fresh herbs.

Lift and Longevity

After discovering that baking soda has little impact on processing, I wondered if it contributed to greater lift. It does! But this contribution is minor, and almost indetectable when falafel are warm.

I almost called baking soda optional until I noticed a small increase in lift translates to more pleasant falafel when cool. Falafel are best made to order and enjoyed fresh. They toughen as their temperature drops, and for some, this can be the difference between eating or tossing leftovers. Falafel with baking soda didn’t need as much reviving even after a full 24 hours from frying!

Will Baking Powder Lose Its Potency If Added Too Soon?

It will not! I was compelled to explore this question following a short by America’s Test Kitchen which proves pancake batter refrigerated overnight produces comparably fluffy pancakes. Indeed, you can ride the power of your food processor and add your (double-acting) baking powder with everything else.

Admittedly, I’m diverging from traditional recipes with this advice. Middle Eastern food bloggers including Suzy Karadsheh of The Mediterranean Dish and Yumna Jawad of Feel Good Foodie instruct their audiences to add baking powder later. You may follow their lead! I’m personally choosing the assurance of my appliance that everything is uniformly mixed.

The Half Asked Question

I didn’t start these experiments wondering if a pound (454 grams) of soaked beans, an onion, half a dozen garlic cloves, a literal bunch of herbs, and a figurative bunch of spices would challenge my 13-cup (3-Liter) Cuisinart food processor. So many recipes list similar quantities, I didn’t even consider they would be too much!

Yet if machines could cry, mine might’ve the first time I loaded it for these tests. I have a thing - You could call it hatred - of using half of anything in a recipe: half a bag of beans, half an onion, half a bunch of herbs... I will write these measurements if I must, but practically speaking, I simply don’t like forcing cooks to solve random bits of produce.

I must. I decided to write this recipe for one batch that a decent home food processor can handle. Besides, it already makes about two dozen falafel! You may double it to avoid all those halves if you'd like, but be prepared to process twice and shape nearly 50 times.