Pea Falafels (Hen Food)

Get 'em while they're hot

What do you feed 14 hungry girls on a hen do (this isn't a joke, it was an actual conundrum that the maid of honour, Becki, and I had to solve)? We needed a bunch of canapes to accompany prosecco and drinking games before a big clucky night out in Brighton and these pea falafels hit the spot. I actually lugged my whizzer to Brighton specially, I was that dedicated to the canape. These are great as they are easy, healthy, very cheap and people seem to blimmin love them. And they are bright green which is always fun.

Quantities can be whatever you want, to make about 25 falafels I think I used 500g peas, just to give you an idea. Boil your frozen peas for 2 minutes and drain. Gently fry a chopped onion with some chopped garlic  in olive oil until soft but don't brown it too much. Put the peas in a whizzer along with the onions and garlic, a heaped teaspoon of toasted cumin seeds (just dry fry them in the onion pan, before the onions), an egg, a chopped fresh red chillie (gives pretty red flecks) a small bunch of roughly chopped coriander, and lots of seasoning. As my whizzer is a little one, I had to do it in two batches which was fine. You will have a wet-ish lurid green mush. Put this mush into  a bowl, add a heaped tbsp toasted sesame seeds and a big handful of breadcrumbs and mix well. If it still seems too wet simply add more bread crumbs. Now get a large non-stick frying pan hot with a splash of olive oil and place golf ball sized balls of the mush in the pan. Very gently (and it helps if you have a glamorous assistant here, thanks Eavan) squash them with the back of a spoon of spatula so they are little patties. Fry on each side until browned, and set aside on kitchen roll. When you want to eat them, simply warm on a baking tray in the oven and serve with a dip of a tbsp of harissa swirled in natural yoghurt.


Sit back and watch 14 hens ruin their freshly manicured nails.