A couple of weeks ago I talked about my fast food cravings. I´m usually not the burger person, instead I will almost always opt for falafel instead (unless we are talking homemade burgers of course). I´m not quite sure why, maybe it´s because the Turkish or oriental cuisine is more vegetarian friendly or maybe it has to do with my weird relationship with cabbage. I hate cabbage when it is cooked but love raw coleslaw. Does that make any sense? It´s almost as weird as the fact that I make basically all my recipes with tomatoes but I don’t like tomato soup.

Anyway, to come back to this recipe, the reason why I like falafel (or Doner Kebab) so much is, that it is typically made with tons of tzatziki and coleslaw. Love it!

This recipe in particular is a result of me being too lazy to drive to the store. It was a Thursday evening, we didn’t have any pita bread but I was craving falafel and pita. So we just decided to make our own pita bread. At first we went with this recipe, which was great but not that easy to fill. So after a little bit of research we found this one (it´s only in German though) and it turned out great. I substituted half of the flour with spelt flour to make the recipe a little healthier. You could also go with whole wheat spelt flour or other whole wheat flours of your choice. The recipe is really rather easy and quick to make, you just have to keep in mind that the dough for the pita bread needs some time to rise and the coleslaw tastes best if it sits for a while.

For the pita bread (makes 8):

1 tbsp. butter

1 tbsp. sugar

42 g fresh yeast

250 g all-purpose flour

250 g light spelt flour

1 teaspoon salt

1) Heat butter and sugar in 300 ml of water until the butter is melted. Let cool for a while before adding and dissolving the yeast. Place the flours in a bowl. Add salt and yeast and knead for about 10 minutes until you have a firm dough (add more water or flour if necessary). Take the dough out of the bowl, pour a little bit of oil into the bowl and put the dough back in so that it is covered with oil. Let the dough rise for about 45 minutes.

2) Divide the dough into 8 portions and form little balls. Cover with a tablecloth and let rise for another 20 – 30 minutes.

3) Preheat the oven to 250°C. Roll out the balls with a rolling pin until you have 8 flat breads, be careful not to stretch them too much. Bake the bread in the oven for 5 minutes until the dough starts to burst open. Turn the breads and bake for another 5 minutes until they are light brown.

For the coleslaw:

¼ red cabbage

Red wine vinegar

Salt, pepper

1) Grate red cabbage. Season with vinegar, salt and pepper and let sit for a couple of hours.

For the tzatziki:

250 g quark or sour cream

½ cucumber

1 garlic clove

Lemon juice

Salt, pepper

1) Wash cucumber and grate. Chop garlic. Mix everything together with quark and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.

Makes 10-15 falafel:

250 g canned chickpeas

1 onion

1 garlic clove

1/2 bunch of parsley

1 tbsp. lemon juice

50 g breadcrumbs or semolina

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 tbsp. flour

Salt

1) Drain chickpeas. Chop garlic clove, onion and parsley. Place chickpeas, garlic clove, onion, parsley and lemon juice in a bowl and mix everything using a blender.

2) Add breadcrumbs or semolina, flour and baking powder and knead well. Season with salt. Form little falafel with your hand. They could be little balls or you could flatten them a bit.

3) Heat oil in a pan. Cook falafel from both sides until they are light brown.

To assemble the pita, cut the pita bread open and fill with tzatziki and coleslaw. Add salad, tomatoes and falafel.