Israeli Falafel Sandwich

Method

1. Make the Israeli salad first, so the flavours have time to sit. Toss the cucumber, tomatoes and red onion with the lemon juice, olive oil and salt. Set aside.
2. Heat the olive oil in a wide skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the eggplant slices in batches for 3 to 4 minutes per side, until soft and deeply browned. Drain on paper towels and season lightly with salt.
3. Warm the falafel, whether just fried or reheated. A few minutes in a low oven or a quick pass in a dry skillet works for already-cooked falafel.
4. Warm the pita briefly on a dry skillet or directly over a low flame, just until pliable.
5. Spread hummus generously inside each pita pocket. Add 5 falafel per sandwich, crushing one or two slightly against the side so the pieces distribute rather than rolling out when you bite in.
6. Layer in the Israeli salad, two or three slices of fried eggplant, pickled cucumbers, and a spoonful of amba if using. Finish with a generous drizzle of tahini sauce.
7. Press the pita closed enough to eat out of hand. Serve immediately.

Notes

• A note on the name. Falafel, and most of what fills this sandwich, are Levantine and Arab dishes with roots that predate the state of Israel by centuries; ta’ameya’s likely origin traces back further still, in Egypt. What’s specifically “Israeli” here is this particular assembled sandwich format, hummus and tahini and finely diced salad and pickles and amba all stacked into one pita, which is genuinely a distinct way of eating falafel and is worth naming honestly rather than as an invented dish from nothing.
• Dice the salad genuinely small. Israeli salad is defined by its fine, uniform dice, more than any specific vegetable ratio; large chunks change the texture of the whole sandwich and make it harder to eat without everything falling out.
• Crush a falafel or two against the inside of the pita before adding the rest. A layer of loose crumbs helps hold the whole filling together, where five whole round falafel tend to roll and spill.
• Amba is worth seeking out if you haven’t had it. Its sour, faintly funky mango tang is doing a similar job to what pickles do elsewhere in the sandwich, cutting through the hummus and tahini, just with a flavour nothing else here quite replaces.

Ingredient substitutions

• Store-bought falafel works perfectly well here; the sandwich build is the point of this recipe, not the frying.
• Zhoug (a spicy green herb sauce), spooned in alongside the tahini, for a sharper, spicier version.
• No amba on hand, a spoonful of mango chutney thinned with a little vinegar gets close.

Sources consulted

• Vered’s Israeli Cooking: Why the Israeli Falafel Is, Well, Israeli
• Remitly: Israeli Falafel, How to Make It and Why It’s Famous

Good with

• Levantine Chickpea Falafel
• Smooth hummus
• Tahini lemon dressing
• Toum

From Christoph Mayer

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