Baked Beetroot Falafel

Ingredients

For the falafel

• 200 g raw beetroot, roughly chopped
• 400 g tinned chickpeas, drained, rinsed and dried
• ½ brown onion, roughly chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• large handful of parsley
• ¼ cup walnuts
• 80 g breadcrumbs
• zest of half a lemon
• 2 teaspoon ground cumin
• large pinch of salt and pepper
• 2 teaspoons olive oil

To serve

• 5 wholemeal pittas
• hummus
• mixed leaves
• cucumber, sliced
• tomato, sliced
• red onion, sliced
• chilli sauce
• garlic sauce

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas mark 6 and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Transfer all the falafel ingredients to a food processor. Then pulse the ingredients a few times until they have broken down but the mixture is still quite rough.

Take a small handful of the falafel mixture and compress it into a ball roughly the size of a golf ball, then transfer to the baking tray. Repeat this step until all of the falafel mixture has been used up and pressed into balls. You should be left with 15 or so falafel balls.

Place the tray with the falafel balls in the preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile heat the pittas in the oven for a few minutes or in the toaster. Then slice open the pitta breads on one side and fill with a spread of hummus, a few pieces of mixed leaves and slices of cucumber, tomato and red onion.

Remove the falafels from the oven and place 3 in each pitta.

Serve with a drizzle of chilli sauce and garlic sauce.