North Africa · Volume 13, The Oldest Kitchen
Ta'ameya
Cairo, for breakfast
Illustration
- Time
- Hands on 30 minutes · Waiting 8 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 135 sources in the brief
Two things separate ta'ameya from Levantine falafel and neither is optional. The bean is split, peeled fava, never chickpea. And the herb load is enormous, 2 to 3 cups of mixed parsley, coriander and dill per 500 g of dry bean, plus two leeks. The target colour is stated precisely by Egyptian cooks as a vivid green, with a pistachio shade, and if the interior is beige the herb load was wrong.
As tradition built it
Makes about 20. 30 minutes, plus an overnight soak.
Ingredients
- 500 g split peeled dried fava beans
- 2 leeks, white and green, chopped
- 2 to 3 cups parsley, coriander and dill leaves only, no stems
- 4 to 5 spring onions
- 5 garlic cloves
- 2 tbsp ground cumin
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 1.5 tsp sweet paprika
- 1 tsp baking powder, optional
- 2 to 3 tbsp sesame seeds
- as needed oil for deep frying
Method
- Soak the split peeled dried fava beans overnight in cold water until a bean crushes between finger and thumb. Drain and rinse in a fine sieve. Do not cook them.
- Grind the beans with the leeks, spring onions, garlic cloves, parsley, coriander and dill.
- Add the ground cumin, ground coriander, sweet paprika and, if using, the baking powder, then beat in a stand mixer on medium for 3 to 5 minutes. This is aeration, not mixing, and it is the step that makes the dish.
- Form into patties about 1.5 cm thick, not spheres, and coat the outside in sesame seeds.
- Fry at 175°C until puffed and golden throughout. Serve in aish baladi with salad, torshi and tahini, alongside ful.
Notes
After Chez Nermine.
What a modern chef changes
A probe in the oil, a coarser grind, and a hand that does not squeeze
Rungs 4 and 6
Method
- Put a probe in the fryer and stay between 163 and 177°C. That is a fifteen degree window, and eyeballing it is how most home versions fail. Above it, a set crust over a raw core and bitter over browning. Below it, the patty drinks oil and becomes, in ThermoWorks' good phrase, a grease ball.
- Grind coarse and stop early. The instinct is to take the paste smooth. Resist it: the irregularity in the grind produces the shattering crust, and a smooth paste fries to a uniform, slightly rubbery shell.
- Do not compact. Rung 6, and the commonest failure after the bean itself. A falafel scoop, the aleb ta'ameya, exists to deposit an uncompacted patty. Hands pressing a ball together undo the three minutes of whipping you just did.
- If you use bicarbonate, know what it is for. It aerates, and it raises pH so browning runs faster, which lets you colour the outside at a temperature low enough for the raw interior to cook through.