I kept this in mind as I started testing more recipes.
Canning Canned Chickpeas
Falafel recipes can be broadly divided into two categories: those that start with dried chickpeas and those that start with canned. In the past, I’d leaned toward the canned-chickpea recipes, since the extra steps of soaking and precooking dried chickpeas felt like too much of a pain on top of the required deep-frying. Boy, what a mistake that was.
Turns out that dried chickpeas are essential to good falafel. See, canned chickpeas have already been cooked. Starch molecules within them have already burst and released their sticky contents, much of which get washed away in the cooking liquid, leaving the remaining chickpeas with very little clinging power. Try to grind canned chickpeas, form them into balls, and deep-fry them, and they completely fall apart in the oil. The common solution for this type of recipe is to add some extra starch in the form of flour.
