Carla Makes Falafel-Spiced Tomatoes and Chickpeas on Flatbread

So, this is for when, maybe all summer long,

you've been eating tomatoes on toast,

or tomatoes on your burger, or obviously BLTs,

and maybe you just know that summer's gonna come to an end,

and it's kind of like prom, or like that last dance at camp,

where you're, want to do something special,

'cause you might not see each other for awhile,

or school is gonna get out, and so you take

this tomato out for a fancy dinner,

and you say honey, get dressed up tonight.

That's what I'm gonna do now,

I'm gonna dress up these tomatoes.

(gentle music)

The most perfect way to have tomatoes

in my opinion is on toasted white bread,

a lot of mayo, sliced tomato, and salt.

And essentially what I'm gonna make right now

is a falafel spiced tomato with a seasoned yogurt

on a toasted flatbread and it's basically

just tomatoes on toast like super souped up.

So, the most important thing though

is you save this recipe for end of season.

And one of the ways that you will know

if it's a good tomato is by looking at it, smelling it.

So when you look at it you want to see

a fresh green stem, you want to see a tomato

that doesn't have split skins, that doesn't have

a ton of bruises, although a beautiful heirloom tomato

that is super juicy is gonna feel

almost like a full water ballon.

Just like right on the edge of bursting through

and that's something you want.

You want your tomato to be heavy for its size.

I could make a lot of comments about that's also

a great thing to look for in a mate, we like plump tomatoes.

Pick up the tomatoes, smell the tomato,

don't squeeze the tomato, the farmers really don't like it

when you squeeze their tomatoes.

Also, if you're gonna squeeze any

tomato you ask first, obviously.

So, I'm gonna slice this guy in half just so I can get

at the core which is kind of tucked in there

and if it's a little bit irregular, it's fine.

This is you know, came from the earth.

More tomato intel, don't put tomatoes

in the refrigerator, a lot of people don't know

how to store tomatoes and they want to

put 'em in the fridge to keep them longer.

That will make them mealy.

I also think some of the prettiness of this recipe

comes from using a couple varieties of tomatoes.

So, that's why I'm cutting into a couple,

we will eat all of it, please don't at me later, okay?

(gentle music)

This is the falafel spice, there's garlic,

cumin and coriander, this is sumac,

which we just had a quick convo.

Sumac and falafel, typical, not so typical?

Not typical.

The sumac I think is the chef touch.

So, this is Josh McFadden's recipe.

He's a chef in Portland, if you're ever been

to Portland and gone to Ava Gene's.

That's his restaurant, he also wrote a cookbook

that people love called, Six Seasons.

He's kind of known as a vegetable whisperer

but just tomatoes are a fruit.

Anywho, sumac is a Middle Eastern,

it is a Middle Eastern spice which is tart

and a little bit sour kind of lemony.

If you can't find sumac, grate a little bit

of lemon zest over these.

There's a few chefy touches.

Having your own kind of bespoke spice blend

instead of just putting salt and pepper on the tomato

is the dress up part of this tomato flatbread recipe

but it does give them a ton of flavor

and the other key part is seasoning them

ahead of time and I'm gonna let them sit.

Now, we're gonna make the chickpea portion.

So, vinegar, sliced shallot,

this gets salt, pepper, and olive oil.

A certain amount of olive oil, tablespoon.

Come on Tommy, I added a--

Three tablespoons. Three tablespoons.

I thought it was one.

I just need a fork for smashing or a potato masher, smasher.

All right, so I'm smashing and I'm sort of half mashing them

because I want a mix of textures

'cause I'm pretty sure that's what Josh McFadden wanted.

It's not spreadable per se but that you could

put this down on a flatbread and it's not just

like the beans are just gonna roll straight off.

The parsley's gonna go in, I just

don't want it to fully sog out.

I mean he says to add it though, I'll hold some back.

Chef trick, add some of the herbs,

and then a little bit later you add the fresh herbs

and then you get the best of both worlds.

(gentle music)

All right, this is our yogurt.

It's yogurt with cucumber, pre-chopped herbs

that somebody chopped for me, mint and parsley.

Obviously if you only have parsley just use parsley,

if you only have mint, maybe use a little bit less

but you could just use the mint.

The tender herbs put dill in there,

I just learned to love dill.

A really nice amount of parsley, also the mint,

so every element of this recipe

and this is classic chef stuff, is season.

Every single component of this dish has been treated

as its own little subrecipe.

A little hot sauce, this happens to be Cholula,

not Schilling, not sponsored, we just love Cholula.

It's more about the type of hot sauce

that it is, this is a vinegar based hot sauce.

It's not super spicy, it's pretty light.

A little garlicky maybe.

Crystal is another vinegar based hot sauce

you could use Sriracha, not gonna kick you out of bed.

(gentle music)

This flatbread recipe is just the go-to.

It's super simple, it is all-purpose flour,

salt, sugar, baking powder.

I recently had to learn the difference

between baking powder and baking soda.

It's very complicated between the baking soda

and the baking powder and Claire wrote

a 2,000 word article about the difference

but the way that I learned how to remember it now

is that the baking powder has the power,

they're both leaveners, but baking powder has the power

so it can create lift on its own

whereas baking soda with the S,

it needs something sour to interact with.

The irony is I'm adding something sour

but it was baking powder and I'm adding

plain yogurt and the cool thing about yogurt

as an ingredient the acidity in the yogurt

will prevent too much gluten from forming.

That helps these be super tender.

And then I'm just kneading this for a few minutes.

It's a really forgiving dough, it doesn't have

to knead for a long time just really enough

until the dough feels mostly smooth.

And then flouring the surface as needed

so where I feel like I can really feel that the dough

is wet and sticking to my hands,

I'm gonna throw a little more flour down

and divide into four.

And these guys are going to rest for 15 minutes

and that's really just long enough for the gluten to relax.

Cover these with plastic.

And these go at room temperature, bye.

15 minutes, already?

All right, so back onto a lightly floured surface

and you can just tell the rested dough it just has chilled.

I'm gonna stretch it a little bit.

Just gonna roll them out, they could be round,

they could be oval.

Say you didn't make your own dough,

even though I made it look incredibly easy,

and you're using pocketless pita, or lavash,

or some other pita product, you're still gonna do this part.

You have a pre-heated preferably cast-iron

but a stainless steel skillet's gonna work too.

We'll all sing it up with some oil

and this is gonna go really quickly because they're so thin.

Just laying the dough in there

and let it kind of get browned on both sides,

bubbles should pop up from the power of baking powder,

and it's gonna take maybe a minute or two per side.

And this is very hard for me but I just have to stand here.

I want to mess with everything, don't mess with it.

Has it been a minute yet?

I mean starting to get golden brown.

I remain unsatisfied with my results.

It's like the first pancake.

It's never as good as the second pancake.

Okay I'm satisfied but I'm still gonna make the other one.

Fling, looks nice, I'm doing another one, can't be stopped.

Ta-da and this one I'm very pleased with how it looks.

But the shape of this, because it's got these round parts

and the round tomatoes are gonna fit in the rounds.

Ah Chris, it's gonna be great.

(laughs)

Classic Morocco.

(gentle music)

So now my order of operations is

yogurt, chick pea, tomato, that makes sense.

It does make sense, so this is enough

for four so I'm gonna just try to eyeball it

and I'm folding in some of the fresh parsley

that I didn't fold in before.

Also, McFadden's a big whole herb fan.

I like using parsley in this way

that it keeps its texture but if you make this

and you think to yourself, I think I would have

enjoyed eating it more if I chopped up the parsley

and folded it all the way in, then that is your right

and your privilege as the cook of your own kitchen

to do it the way that you like next time.

So, now we have our marinated,

super juicy, seasoned tomatoes.

Like I said, this is the tomato toast

that you can actually eat for dinner.

Hold on, I need my own area.

Juicy mess, eat this in your bathing suit.

And I'm just gonna sign off before taking another bite

because I won't be able to talk anymore.

So, yeah, take your tomatoes out

for dinner you know what I mean, delicious.

You Light Up My Life.

Bye, I'll be doing this 'til August.