Falafel Feast! ~ Dinner Party Tonight

It’s spring break! Why not TRAVEL IN YOUR KITCHEN with these CROWD-PLEASING FAVORITES from the Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa: PERFECT FALAFEL with TZATZIKI SAUCE, SMOOTH & BRIGHT HUMMUS, CRISP GREEK SALAD, DELICIOUS DOLMAS and DECADENTLY SWEET BAKLAVA!! It’s a trip worth taking!!!

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Oppa that’s the Plates welcome to dinner party tonight sort of Greek style night we thought let’s make falafel and from the Falafel came some other ideas so today what are we going to make well we’re going to make falafel we’re also going to make some hummus which I usually don’t like

Because it has so much garlic in it but we’re going to see if we can make it with a tiny bit less garlic and we’re going to have a Greek salad with dolas which are those wrapped um grape leaves should be an interesting moment in the kitchen going to try and

Make those little rectangular things and then we’re going to try to make Baklava which appears to be sort of easy but I’m not sure full disclosure I have never made a single thing on this menu so we’re going to have an experience and an adventure together on dinner party tonight Greek mystery hour

Baklava we say baklava I believe in England they say baklava but I could be wrong a very beautiful similar word is balaclava which is a sort of hat continuing on baklava is a middle eastern and Mediterranean dessert Crossing cultures I forget that the Mediterranean is very

Close to the Middle East if you look at a map It’s Kind it’s fascinating there’s Greek baklava there’s Lebanese baklava there’s Turkish baklava their fillings vary slightly the Lebanese one is a little less sweet basically it’s a honey and felo pastry and nut dessert and it appears to be easy however I’ve never

Made it before so the first thing we’re going to do is make the syrup which is essentially uh honey sugar water lemon peels you they do suggest you make this overnight I did I do have a magic of TV one but we’re going to make it together

Because it’s it’s a sort of a beautiful smell and it’s simple and lovely and part of the steps of making baklava I could be wrong about that we’re going to make honey syrup it’s extremely sweet I made it last night sober basically sober I only add one drink plus the

Champagne all right we’re GNA put a cup of water a cup of sugar and 3/4 of a cup of honey are you a honey fan I’m not really a honey fan here we go I’m going to turn this down a little bit so they tell you to put just lemon okay I think

We can do better than that I’m thinking of bakaba and where it comes from right and I’m thinking of spices that could go in the syrup which is if you think of eating a piece of baka if you’ve eaten it it’s exotic in a funny way so I was

Thinking about making it slightly more exotic by flavoring the syrup that we’re going to paint the Bava with let’s try some cloves how about a little vanilla hey La I’m going to put a little bit of vanilla syrup in you want to boil this and then you want to uh simmer it

For 15 minutes a approximately you’re reducing it you should keep it overnight on the counter Loosely covered if it’s still hot and then covered I guess you could put it in the fridge if you wanted but it’s honey so honey is a little problematic in the fridge anyways I’m

Just going to boil this Reggie had the idea of cardamom which is such a beautiful thing I happen oh I happen to have whole cardamom seeds which you can chew they sometimes have them at Indian restaurants cumin too oh I’m going to put quite a significant Handful in okay we can see

Them so they’re just we’re not going to paint with them so this is just a beautiful thing isn’t it honey you know was a is more special I think than people remember do you ever want to keep bees or do you ever watch people keeping bees it’s like this

Incredible process that bees making honey and it’s such a precious thing and it doesn’t go off you can have a it can Harden if it’s not uh heavily processed but it’s uh you can keep it in your cupboard forever it’s a beautiful sweet treat and people should think more about

Honey and how precious it is all right now I’m going to boil this you’re just looking for it to go down a little bit reduce a little bit it should coat the back of a spoon in other words it should be in the nap stage na p PE meaning

Coating the back of a spoon we’ll go ahead and hit a timer all right this looks good to me I’m going to just simmer that for 15 minutes we’re going to make the filling which is chopped nuts sugar a little cinnamon and some flavors and stuff like that we’re going

To use literally wonderful pistachios the greatest nut on planet Earth they don’t mention peans because I don’t think they have peans but we’re going to use peans walnuts peans [Applause] pistachios all right let’s pulse this the dogs don’t like that you don’t want to make Nut Butter here so

Pulse be see be careful it’s almost going to make peanut butters I’m just going to put a little teeny bit of sugar this is a diabetes dessert and a little bit of cinnamon my least favorite spice we’re going to use gingerbread spice which is basically uh all spice ginger cinnamon nutmeg cloves

That’s perfect so here we go some you’re a dinner partyer look at your amount here comes the part where we find out it’s not easy we’re going to use a kind of dough called felo dough which uh they sometimes make them make on Great British Bake Off which is just not fair

Okay it’s like puff pastry just just buy it okay just buy felo this is felo I’ve never made this before okay so what they want me to do is paint this with butter roll out two pieces cut cut it to this size but you can’t expose this to air

Because it dries very very very quickly so we’re going to see how this go goes here’s my buta generously paint this okay I’m going to roll out some felo here’s two pieces yikes okay you have to cover it with a wet cloth apparently I’m going to lay this in the

Bottom right it’s not the right size almost the right size then I’m going to paint this with the butter the melted butter and you put filling people who know how to make this are like what are you doing okay I’m just going to estimate the size how about

That how about them apples putting the two sheets on top of the filling this one’s too big so what painting with butter nice uh the reason why I’m working quickly is because it it does actually dry very quickly now it’s safe cuz it has the butter on it filling there’s a huge

Hospitality tradition in the whole Middle East about welcoming guests baklava I’m pretty sure would have been a major feature in that cuz it’s kind of a special thing going to do three layers I guess covering if this is really how you make it it is pretty easy last

Layer look at the top one I cut it perfectly if this works what a lovely Christmasy thing right now the interesting part is going to be cutting it which we’re supposed to cut it in that famous baklava design I don’t that doesn’t seem very easy to me but we’ll

Try we’re now going to attempt to cut The Baklava first of all we’re going to score it and apparently it’s not going to simply pull away with me we’re going to go like this and then we’re going to go like this we have some cold water here I’m scoring

It oh dear these are going to be big pieces okay so I I cut it wrong not a surprise all right now I’m going to try to cut it supposedly you serrated works best oh my when in doubt go Pari the cuts are uh not very good here’s a picture of somebody doing

A really nice one look at this huge one rectangular one all right let’s take it to the stage 350 oven for some time how long for 35 to 50 minutes that’s a rather large it’s felo when it puffs up and Browns it’s done I have it on convection

It’s at 340 convection okay I’m going to keep an eye on it I think 50 minutes is a little extravagant but we’ll see and the butter will melt the Fila will crisp and puff good luck little Baklava here’s the bakaba it’s hot and crispy ooh now we’re going to take our magic of Television syrup which is cold and we’re going to evenly Pour It All Over The Baklava including the corners now I made a mistake do you know what it is you’re

Not painting it you are pouring it so therefore with the stuff you put in it you do kind of have to SI It oh yeah here we go walking down the street we get the funniest looks from All The Baklava we meet hey hey where the baklava Makers so you can see why this comes from such a tradition of hospitality what a magnificent treat to serve people right I’m just kind of pouring it in the openings I’m very pleased with the way this looks I wish I’d cut it better but it’s it’s pretty beautiful so this needs

To set and it’s you know in its Vibes for about four to 6 hours you also don’t serve this piping hot by the way you can store this covered room temperature for 3 days or you can put it in the fridge um for up to a week you just use your

Common sense anyways hello baklava don’t have a palava make a aava we are going to make hummus all of my friends know I don’t like hummus and the reason I don’t like hummus is because it has too much garlic in it usually Lynn discovered that’s actually pretty modern it didn’t have

Garlic in it traditionally and we’re going to use a little olive oil which is also modern now chickpeas is what it’s made of and sesame paste which is heini FYI did you know that chick bees have a skin there’s the skin which looks un sort of unfortunate it looks like a toe

Skin you can make hummus without removing this you will get a smoother hummus but if you leave it in your food processor long enough it doesn’t really matter you know you there are skins these are organic chickpeas some of them are misshapen and brown because they’re organic they also have no salt basically

What we’re doing is making a chickpea paste so unlike the falafel recipe which we’ll get to but it requires dried chickpeas these are from a can and you know what’s really crazy I’ve been eating chickpeas my whole life I never knew they had a skin isn’t that nuts okay I’m going to

Stop some lemon juice lemon juice and we’re going to use a very small piece of garlic it’s the center of the garlic that little piece is green sometimes that’s the most garlicky part of the garlic uh and what we want is a sort of a fine

Paste so I’m going to use a micr planer this is a a staple in the Middle East also in North Africa I’m winging this ladies and gentlemen that’s a sort of a semi fine paste not really a paste but we’ll see some pepper and salt salt and I’m going to use my Skil

Grinder for a little green pepper it is a lovely pepper it’s not very spicy so there you go little green pepper for when we want it let’s see what happens uh some recipes call for boiling these prior you get a softer consistency we’re going to put in about half a cup

I’m going to eyeball this okay all right so I’m going to put some salt because it’s uh pretty unsalty we’re going to put in our lemon juice and garlic voila a little bit of green pepper corns just a little and some black pepper I guess you just run

It I’m just going to add oil just going to see the consistency it’s way too thick I’m loosening it with a little more lemon juice as well as olive oil I’m going to put a tiny bit of cumin in It I mean it’s really good but it’s too thick I think it should be loosened a bit perfect serve with carrots pea celery whatever you like you can make this 5 days in advance 7even days in advance I mean it’s it’ll keep it’s bright it’s yummy hummus don’t be a dumus make some

Hummus we’re going to make a delicious sauce that can go with your Falafel called tziki quite similar to Rita it’s a delicious accompanyment for Falafel for lamb for chicken for anything that needs a sort of cooling aspect because it’s Greek yogurt lemon juice yumminess salt pepper cucumber Etc so we’re just going

To quickly go through the steps which is I’m just going to grate some cucumber into this bowl with the skin so it has green be careful you don’t go to the hospital with a grater and you can make this couple days in advance you can make this probably

Five days in advance if you wanted I’m just going to quickly squeeze out some of the excess liquid yeah you see otherwise you get a very watery sauce sometimes sometimes not these were not particularly watery a little bit of lemon juice not too much not too little and

Pel now you can also serve your Falafel with tahini sauce which is essentially tahini which is ground sesame with a little bit of lime or lemon juice to loosen it and some olive oil and whatever pepper you want okay it’s very very simple sauce you can also serve it

With chili oil you can serve it with whatever you want you don’t have to follow any rules you’re a dinner partyer however this is a kind of a lovely sauce or condiment a little bit of pepper and some olive oil I’m now going to put in the Greek

Yogurt and I’m going to cut up some dill and put some dill in here which is and mint which is actually a beautiful accompaniment for the Cucumbers okay A little bit of olive oil all I’m doing is loosening it with the olive oil I have some mint and some

Dill that I have washed you can do this all in your food processor if you want um it’s such a small amount though I mean unless you’re having a huge crowd could you use a blender yeah if you have small enough container fresh herbs they elevate you

Know a fun thing to do is to put fresh herbs in a salad just whole herbs pieces of Basil pieces of margarine pieces of mint just put them in the salad in the summer it’s kind of delightful okay A little mint little uh dill look at these beautiful ingredients don’t be afraid to

Add a little something like this they’re going to be thrilled that you made any of these things or if you just had them over and had Chinese food okay but don’t be afraid if you have the extra five minutes to do something like this because it does make a difference to

Them this is going to stay in its prep bowl for now and then right before service from the fridge I’ll put it in a smaller prettier Bowl tziki it’s so NY let’s make Dolmas you know those things that are in Greek salads that you never considered thinking about once making we’re going

To make it it might be super super hard we are using um Jared leaves which are fine you can use fresh leaves it’s probably more delicious but we’re using lightly pickled Orlando California Grappa Leos here’s what they look like don’t be scared Randy it’s just like

Green packets so what do I have here I have some rice with some crispy sort of shot tastes in it and yumminess and a little bit of olive oil so the first thing they want you to do because you actually steam these which I think Lyn

And I think might tighten it I’m not convinced as a cook but it’s going to tighten it but these may not be fully cooked that could be the other reason and I guess one way to figure that out is to try one so let’s try one it’s not

Cooked it’s actually pickled it’s quite delicious but what they would like you to do is line the bottom of your Dutch oven with some grape leaves to prevent your dolas from sticking now what is doas now doas comes from all over the world packets as you guys know are very

Pan cultural putting things in little packets okay dolma is Turkish for stuffed but hilariously DM which you could easily say may ask more doas to my salad means taxi so this is just a little bed for our doas remember you’re coming with me on the Greek mystery hour so let’s find a good

One to start with here we go that’s a good one point facing to me now like green packets you want the rib side facing you so that the front side of your dolma or taxi little package taxi it’s cute a little rice taxi wouldn’t it be nice to

Get into a taxi and there’s some grains of rice there saying hello to you this is just rice we’re making dma we’re making dma we’re making Doom we’re making dma that looks good but now I got all this excess here look a taxi okay we’re going to make another one so

You can put meat in this you can really make this from any country you want you know what I mean or you can make it have the vibe of any country you want cut this little thing this can be a collar green this can be a cabbage leaf small amount of rice okay

Fold fold the sides roll like a seagar voila so have some fun travel in your kitchen that’s one of the most beautiful things okay so we’re just going to steam these in a little bit of water I’m going to put sort of like maybe almost half a cup

Of water here and if I feel like that’s not enough I can always add water I’m going to put this await something like a plate that’s okay to be very hot or a lid that’s smaller than the pan and I’m just going to gently boil this and steam them

For about 30 minutes here we go to the Stove all right here we go we’ve steamed them you know I’m not going to lie they’re rustic I’m going to take the best ones out they should be allowed to cool and served at room temperature they did firm up slightly frankly dolas should I taste one excellent to be honest we used fully

Cooked rice and the reason that they are steamed is because the steam also finishes cooking the rice so our rice is a little bit separated it’s not like that gummy rice that’s in a domas but we learned they’re yummy doas they have a nice Aromas you know what’s not awful

Falafel I happen to love Falafel it’s a teeny bit naughty because it’s fried but it’s absolutely delicious made of dry chickpeas not from the can look at this super cute bag of dyed chickpeas that I bought didn’t look at the dimensions or weight of the

Bag so I have a lot of dried chickpeas basically you mix it up in a food processor and then form it into a bowl in fry it we’re going to fry it in my new fryolator and I’ve never made falafel but I do love it um so these you have to soak these

For 12 hours these are still crunchy so we’re hoping it’s okay but you want it to have a a little not mushiness like the canned ones are mushy right so you want to have almost two cups of chickpeas so this container okay two cups salt I would say right you never

You can never go wrong with a little salt um I’m going to use Aleppo pepper they want you to use Cayenne Aleppo is just as fine some lemon juice then we’re going to Blitz this I don’t know what’s going to happen I’m literally winging this which is hilarious cuz I’ve never made this

Before and normally I don’t do that if I’ve never made it I’m just going to dry this parsley so if you you ever have herbs that look sort of dead which is very common shock them in cold water it’ll bring the color back I’m just going to

Roughly chop this cuz they’re going in the food processor Okay pink some onion they say so they say half an onion quartered which is half a shallot quartered that’s a big shallot garlic do we want garlic nah no garlic cuz I don’t like it some coriander tablespoon which is a lot and some

Cumin okay should we just pulse it for a second and see what happens looks suspiciously like fallafel um okay that’s it oh there’s an interesting ingredient by the way baking soda you’re a dinner partyer so you already no you never use the baking soda from your refrigerator it’s reacted with

Air it’s not usable as a leaver okay this is um special that I use for cooking should replace it every eight months this is to give it lightness half a Teaspoon I’m going to form it into balls you know to prepare it to be fried in my new fryer I’m going to supposedly make this into circles it’s quite soft okay looks like Falafel to me fful f aul don’t talk with your mouthful f aul it isn’t awful ful you can also form

These into small batties which is even more difficult I am now going to get my fryolator onto the table never been used Straight out of the box don’t you know and we’re going to fry our beautiful delightful bright lovely flawles this is chman he’s my fryolator he’s new chman has an amazing filtration

System where you push this lever when you’re done and it has a filter inside filters the oil down here you let it cool you pick this up and you pour it back in isn’t that amazing Mr chman come on all right here we go I’m going to load my basket first Patties or

Balls no one knows what’s going to happen right now they’re totally boiling in the oil a very important thing about frying which I only know from classes whenever you put something in the fry lator it lowers the temperature so in between batches or you have really we should have a a fry

Lighter thermometer in here just to make sure it’s it’s not dipping super low Mr chman is the bomb I think he works wonderfully well it was under $200 and everybody bugged out about this one and I was looking at the fancy ones I can’t I mean I’m you know watching TV

Surfing and I was like maybe I should really just spend the money and just get do it but the one with the best reviews was Mr chman the tal ultimate easy clean with a built-in filtration system if you don’t have a fr this is a big piece of

Equipment if you don’t have this uh you would fry it in oil in a pan on your stove about this much oil and roll them around with a fork now remember when you’re frying if something happens there’s no reason to panic try to cover

It with a lid if you can if your hand can get close enough if you have a fire blanket those are fantastic they’re like $11 you just throw it over the entire oven and’ll put the fire out or if you have a fire extinguisher just the thing

You should not do is put water on it and don’t do this which people do which is a mystery to me do not do that what do you think oh they’re crispy you guys I never fried anything in my life this is the first time I’ve ever deep fried

Something wow oh boy I’m GNA try one it’s hard I made this and I honestly have no comment it’s delicious oh my God I can make fried chicken I can make donuts I’m very excited about that TF thank you it’s a great product Tel makes some very very very

Excellent oh the dog’s having a dream she’s barking in her sleep you can’t hear her they make excellent non-stick pans I just find this it’s like a miracle it’s like a miracle it’s a miracle miracle te fryer faaf the only thing you have to remember when you come home is to soak the

Chickpeas and um they will remain quite crispy I mean quite hard the chickpeas which we were a little concerned about but this is clearly it tastes exactly like flfl so they’re meant to be maybe slightly hard if you have a a deepish frying pan just put this much oil and

You could easily do this and don’t be afraid to fry nothing’s going to happen keep the lid if something happens you just slide the lid over the top okay and um make some flaf I think kids would love it let’s make a cute little accompaniment of salad a Greek salad it’s called a

Horiatiki in Greek I’m sure I’m pronouncing that incorrectly we’re going to sort of fudge it but that’s okay so we have some roma we’re just going to cut that off have you ever see that in your salad at a restaurant leave really it’s the herbs which is dried oregano in the dressing feta

Olives tomatoes cucumbers a little bit of Dill and dried oregano and you have a Greek salad this is a side to sort of brighten any flaf Saucy yumminess they’ve been having I cut also some celery here I happen to love celery and I have some cucumbers some CES in there feta cheese

Now there’s two different kinds of feta I sheeps milk is the one I like but some people prefer the the other one which I think is goat this is sheep milk I believe you know you always look for the pieces of feta right so let’s give them

A lot of feta this you can do while they’re sitting there this is Dill some beautiful tomatoes this is winter so we’re using cherry tomatoes from Canada I guess they have nice green houses up there Beauty the dog’s little nails you hear their little nails on the hi pretty girl

I’m going to cut some olives I love olives and the olive juice is is going to become part of the dressing also the dressing is oil and vinegar and this dried oregano and the dill salt from the feta looks pretty authentic to me New York City diners have crucified the Greek salad where

They give you like half a pack of feta slab across the top of the salad the veget vegetables are for gargantuan Titanic Giants the pieces are like you know huge but anyways make it nice it’s not hard I’m just going to put a little dried oregano okay um I’m going to crack

A little pepper on there I would totally eat this by the way I’m not going to dress this because our guests are like maybe not sitting down right now so I’m going to make the dressing keep it separate sometimes it’s a good idea to keep the dressing separate anyway because some people like

Less some people like more dressing I have found at dinner parties it’s sometimes better to give them a cute little you know container I used a little olive juice there little Dill thrown in for good measure little bit of the feta juice little bit of a red wine vinegar

Goes well with the uh olive juice and then uh you’re ready to go this is stunning this goes to the table comea then it’s dressed very lightly but BL blah blah blah blah or they dress it themselves you put a nice spoon in here obviously clean the sides and they can

Dress it themselves or a small little jug Greek salad what’s this well a duck’s a malard but this is a Greek salad that was a bad one today on Greek mystery hour we made hummus don’t be a dumus make hummus I usually don’t like it but it was pretty

Damn good we made a beautiful Greek salad with dmas on the side lovely add them eat them separate whichever you like we made falafel from scratch with tziki sauce you can also serve it with tahini sauce you can serve all of the above with beautiful warmed in the oven

Pea for dessert we had baklava or baklava an incredible welcoming example of the hospitality tradition of the Middle East can you do that Greek dancing you would look so cute if you could do it we made all kinds of Greek Beauties try one try two try them all do Greek dancing with your dog take some time to travel in your kitchen and I’ll tell you

That when you do travel the kitchen transcends language if you’re scared at somebody’s house when you’re visiting a a weird country that you don’t know go in the kitchen because that’s where you guys will connect thanks so much for watching hit the bells and button and

We’ll see you soon nobody asked you to be so cute did they hm give me a kiss thank you you would be a friendly person in the kitchen wouldn’t you give me a kiss thank you oppa that’s the plates