Camping Cuisine Part I: Fire-Roasted Falafel with Cucumber Mint Yogurt Dressing

This summer we had fun camping, camping, camping. Our last trip at the end of August was to Burton Island for 5 nights with our friends, the Fisher-Olveras. Burton Island is a great place to camp. It is a beautiful, little island in Lake Champlain near St. Albans Bay. The boys had great fun playing with a whole posse of other young men and, since the island is small and safe, they enjoyed the freedom of being largely unsupervised. It was a little lord-of-the-flies-esque. Lots of running, chasing, and yelling, with sticks and other weapons. To quote my favorite Curious George book, "Luckily, no one was hurt." If you have boys, you know what I mean.


Although, I guess camping should be rustic, I see no need to limit our meals to boring fares like franks and beans. I enjoy the challenge of making some delicious food directly over a wood fire. In the past, I have made homemade pizza dough at home and froze it to take camping. Wood-fire pizzas with fresh tomatoes, sliced mozzarella, pesto, maybe some roasted veggies—rustic, yet still sophisticated. 


This time, I decided to try something new. Last summer, I had good success cooking falafel on the grill, so I made falafel "dough" at home and chilled it for the camping trip. To accompany it, I continued the Middle-Eastern theme with a hearty and healthy Herbed Bulgur and Lentil Salad and a couple bars of Halvah, a delicious sesame candy, for dessert. It was easy, tasty, and better than hot dogs by a long shot.


NOTE: My secret strategy with this is using a grill basket to cook the falafel. It keeps them from burning and sticking and you can pick them up or flip them all at once. 

Of course, I forgot to take a picture.  Here is one from Sophistimom to get your mouth watering.

Grilled Falafel
Adapted from a recipe for “My Favorite Falafel” in The Foods of Israel Today by Joan Nathan found via epicurious.com


2—15 oz. cans of chickpeas

1/2 large onion, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)

4-5 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley

4-5 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro

1 teaspoon salt

1/2-1 teaspoon dried hot red pepper

2-4 cloves of garlic

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon baking powder

4-6 tablespoons flour (I used oat flour to keep them gluten-free)

Olive oil

Chopped tomato for garnish

Lettuce for garnish

Pita bread

Cucumber Mint yogurt dressing (see below)

Put the drained chickpeas, onions, parsley, cilantro, salt, hot pepper, garlic, and cumin in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process until blended but still a little chunky.

Sprinkle in the baking powder and 4 tablespoons of the flour, and pulse. Add more flour, a little at a time so that the dough forms a small ball and no longer sticks to your hands. Turn into a bowl and refrigerate, covered, for several hours.


Form the chickpea mixture into balls about the size of walnuts, flatten slightly and brush each side with olive oil.  Place in a grilling basket and grill over medium heat until browned on both sides and cooked through.  It is difficult to regulate a wood fire so you have to watch these and adjust grill height and fire as needed. They take about 10-15 minutes to cook.

Serve 3-4 falafel on a pita with tomato, lettuce, and yogurt dressing. Thinly sliced bell peppers would also taste good and add a nice crunch.

Yogurt Dressing
This is actually a recipe for a Persian side-dish called Maast-o-Khiar. I found it several years ago posted on a now-defunct website by Roxana & Farzin Mokhtarian. 


2 cups plain, non-fat Greek yogurt
1/2 cucumber, seeded but peel on
One small onion

2 teaspoons fresh mint, finely chopped

Salt

Black pepper

Grate the onion and cucumber and sprinkle lightly with salt. Let it drain for 10 minutes in a colander then squeeze out the excess moisture. Mix everything together. Taste and adjust seasoning. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.