falafel with tzatziki sauce

Falafel is like stiffened hummus. Tzatziki is a cucumber / yogurt sauce. There are as many recipes for these things as there are cooks so I put into them the things I like in the amounts that suited me, but I would be deeply offended if you did the same. Just kidding.

The smoke alarm sounded, always right at the critical moment at the stove, causing me to abandon the stove to dash over and turn on a fan aimed at the sensor to make it stop screaming. It's only the faintest amount of smoke, after all. This is something like the tenth time that's happened and each time I can't help but to think that's a pretty stupid thing for a smoke alarm to do -- to insist on being shut off right at the critical most dangerous moment. Haven't smoke alarm designers ever heard the story of the boy who cried, "Wolf!," five thousand times? The townsfolk eventually dragged him out and shot him. Or something.


*  chickpeas or lima beans or both, either canned or dried. I used dry chickpeas because I think observing them swell up is fun. Cooked or not because eventually they'll be fried. I pressure cooked mine, bringing them to high pressure then immediately allowing them to cool down on their own before opening the pot.
*  olive oil. I'm short on olive oil right now, an inexcusable situation, but long on butter, so I used butter instead of olive oil so my falafel is deep with rich buttery goodness usually absent in ordinary falafel.

*  one egg

*  sourdough bread crumbs 
*  diced onion
*  crushed garlic
*  lime juice
*  tahini
*  S/P
*  coriander
*  cumin
*   habanero powder

Tzatziki sauce

*  1 container of plain yogurt
*  half an English cucumber
*   tahini again
*  lime juice
*   honey
*   S/P
*   ginger powder

I read several people commenting to recipes online complaining about their falafels coming apart when set in the oil, and the whole thing being a disaster.  This was a common complaint.  I did not have that problem because I viewed the process like making hushpuppies which caused me to add an egg to the mixture.  I can see how this would be unacceptable for some vegetarian types who turn to this sort of chickpea recipe precisely to avoid such things as eggs.  I have no advice to impart to vegetarians aside from considering using more breadcrumbs or flour to hold the mixture together.