First of all, on the evening before the day you cook falafel, soak the chickpeas - pour over a large amount of water and add 2 teaspoons of baking soda.

Leave like this overnight, or for about 12 hours.

On the next day, drain all the liquid and rinse the chickpeas well 2-3 times.

Now comes the most important part, finely chopping the chickpeas.

First, I place the chickpea in the food processor with the S blade attached, in 2 rounds, so that the blades don't get stuck.

That's how it came out - still quite coarse and dry. I moved it to a large bowl and set aside.

Then I placed the parsley, coriander, onion and garlic in the food processor.

I chopped them the  best I could.

I added the chopped herbs to the chickpeas in the bowl and mixed with a spatula.

Then I transferred half of the amount of chickpeas back in the food processor. I pulsed at maximum speed, adding about 50ml of olive oil, little by little. This makes the mixture softer and less dry.

This is what my food processor managed to do. Unfortunately, it's not very smooth, and we can still notice some big pieces of onion and herbs here and there.

So, I had to pass everything through the meat grinder.

This is for the chickpea paste to be as smooth as possible, green and not too coarse.

After the mincer, next time I will use the hand blender as well, for an extra fine texture.

But you can avoid all these blender maneuvers, if you have a big and good food processor, which will make fine paste from the first time.

Now add to the chickpea paste - 1 teaspoon of 7 spice mix, 1 teaspoon ground dried coriander, 1 teaspoon sweet or hot paprika, 0.5 teaspoon ground cumin, 0.5 teaspoon ground black pepper and 1 tablespoon salt.

Mix everything well, adjust the salt to your taste.

At the end, add here 1 teaspoon of baking soda and 2 tablespoons of flour.

Mix everything well, the final mixture must be soft and fine (not runny). If it's drier and too dense, add a little more olive oil and mix.

Cover the bowl with a lid or cling and refrigerate for 2-3 hours.

After this time, I recommend storing some of the chickpea paste in the freezer, for another batch of falafel (if you don't have a meal with many guests and don't need to cook a lot of balls). It preserves its texture and taste perfectly after thawing.

Heat well the oil in a deep saucepan or pan. Make sure the oil is very hot, so that the balls will fry quickly and won't absorb too much of it.

Then quickly shape the balls - fill one tablespoon with the chickpea paste.

Put it in your palm and press lightly with your fingers to form a ball. The mixture is soft, so you shouldn't expect perfect and smooth balls, like the play-doh ones.

The Arabian cook, whom I observed in Egypt, held them in his palm for only 1 second, so they had more like a roundish shape.

As you shape the balls, drop them immediately in hot oil and let them until they begin to rise to the surface, then you can use a spatula to turn from side to side.

You need to be quick, cook the balls over high heat, turn with a spatula from side to side periodically.

I didn't bother to make them all perfectly round, but after frying you'll notice they will become even and slightly swollen. I was really afraid they would fall apart, as the paste was rather soft.

When they are well browned, remove from the oil with a spatula and place on a plate lined with paper towel, to absorb the excess oil.

Then shape and fry one more batch, until you finish the chickpea paste.

To serve them, I quickly baked some slices of potatoes with spices, find the recipe here.

You can also bake/fry slices of peppers, zucchini, eggplant.

Then, you definitely must make a salad, with whatever you like and with the vegetables finely chopped.

If you want a more authentic taste, I recommend making a quick tahini sauce - just mix together, in a small bowl, 1-3 tablespoons of tahini paste (mine is homemade), 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 2 tablespoons water and a little salt to taste.

This can be replaced with plain Greek yogurt, if you don't have time or you don't have good tahini paste at hand.

If you made or bought Arabic Pita Bread (my recipe is here), take half of the bread and, in its pocket, place baked potatoes/vegetables, tahini sauce or yogurt, vegetable salad and the chickpea balls (falafel) among all these.

Enjoy with great appetite 1-2-3 or more portions. It's delicious and the recipe can be easily adapted for vegetarians or for Lent.

If you don't have pita breads, serve falafel on a plate, with any salad or vegetable you prefer, sauce and even bread, if you need.

By the way, here are the falafel balls prepared from the thawed chickpea paste.

Enjoy!