How I Learnt About Cooking: The Falafel Incident
By the time I moved out of home I had some understanding of boiling, shallow-frying, microwave-ing, and roasting. However, I had no experience in the deep-frying field. I wanted to cook falafel. I bought falafel mix; I mixed it with water; I was doing fine. I poured oil, a lot of oil, into a wok to do the deep-frying; I started the gas; the oil got hot; I was still doing fine.
I had been told that really hot oil was important for falafel. Consequently, I was careful to boil the oil before I put any of the falafel balls in. Alert, experienced cooks will have noticed an error of judgement at this point.
Vegetable oil doesn’t boil. Sometimes it appears to be boiling, but that is because something with water in it is cooking in the oil. Instead of boiling, really hot vegetable oil starts to smoke, then catches fire.
One of my housemates arrived while I was quietly watching the smoke rising from the oil. He said something like, “Gosh, don’t you realise that oil is going to catch fire!”
Then I remembered – just last week a friend of a friend had nearly burnt their house down through poor cooking safety procedure. Obviously, I had to stop the oil from catching fire.
I turned off the gas; I picked up the wok; I took it quickly to the sink; I poured cold water into the smoking oil. Some will have noticed another error of judgement at this point.
I guess that everyone is familiar with the popping effects that occur when a few drops of water fall into hot oil. It was nothing like that. The water that was pouring from the tap at full bore seemed to pass straight through the oil and gather underneath. Nothing happened for a moment, then there was a loud bang. The oil jumped out of the wok in one huge ball. It saw it fly up into the air and then come down, as if in slow motion. The ball came down on the arm that was holding the handle.
It didn’t hurt at all. My arm was red but there was no pain. Since I had started towards the sink my housemate had been too shocked to speak. At this point he recovered and suggested that I should do something about my arm. I headed towards the bathroom and poured water over my arm. I noticed that my arm didn’t have skin anymore from just above the elbow down. The oil was sticking on rather than washing off. I considered trying soap but I didn’t know if that was a good idea or not.
The pain started a few minutes later. I can’t remember how long it lasted. The skin grew back gradually and now looks exactly like the un-burnt skin.
I have no problem cooking falafel now and I cook it often. Sometimes observers warn me that I could flick oil onto myself. Somehow, I feel that I cannot be burnt again. I feel that the falafel, the oil, and I have an understanding – that we have made a truce. I don’t get that feeling with other deep-frying activities.
