Today’s Special: Nieda’s Moist Falafel

Nieda Abbas served up a falafel unlike any I’d ever tasted before: one bite electric with acidity and flavor, the next comforting with nutty falafel and warm flatbread.

Part of the secret: mango pickle.

Then came the cardamom tea. The spice palate was complete.

Abbas served the sandwich and chaser at Havenly Treats. The refugee-run mezze bar opened up on Temple Street this fall despite the commercial challenges of the pandemic.

Take-out and delivery orders will prove crucial to the ability of local restaurants like Havenly Treats to weather the pandemic during the coming months as Covid-19 cases climb and cold weather sets in. You can order the falafel and other Middle Eastern dishes via the Havenly Treats website. A bright orange ​“Order Now” button directs buyers to takeout (available in roughly 10 minutes). Another menu header directs customers wanting a delivery to ChowNow, the restaurant’s favored delivery service. Delivery is also available through GrubHub and Snackpass. Snackpass, a New Haven-based app, has the better fees of the two for small businesses, according to Havenly Treats Executive Director Caterina Passoni. Hours are noon to 8 p.m. The restaurant is closed on Mondays.

Abbas’ falafel with amba — a pickled mango sauce — is proudly Iraqi, like Abbas herself.

“Every country in the Middle East has their own version of falafel. In Syria, they make falafel with beans. In Lebanon, they make falafel with chickpeas,” Abbas said.

Abbas and her husband ran three small food businesses in Baghdad until 2005, when bombs hit her store and her home. They fled to Syria and, after war started there, moved to the United States as refugees in 2014.

She met Passoni through the refugee resettlement agency IRIS and the pair started Havenly Treats as a refugee-run baklava bakery in 2018. They expanded to full meals this spring and launched in their space at 25 Temple St. in September.

Havenly Treats is both a restaurant and a refugee career development nonprofit. The organization trains all-female fellows in the cooking, language, financial literacy and self-advocacy training they need for culinary careers.

The Covid-19 pandemic has not been kind to Havenly. Sales have dipped since coronavirus cases have surged again and now Havenly’s key customer base of Yale students has gone home for the winter. But the women keep cooking.

The Sandwich

Abbas made her first falafel sandwich at age 9. She remembers telling her mom, who was unimpressed with her ability to make the comfort food.

“She said, ​‘So what?’ You should have made something noble and high,” Abbas remembered.

Abbas continued to learn. By age 15, she could make every one of her family’s dishes, including bread. Now, she has enough skills and experience to see falafel as more than a lowly comfort food.

“It really depends on you. If you put yourself into your food, it will turn out well,” she said in Arabic, with Passoni translating.

Abbas rolled the light green, chickpea dough into balls on Tuesday with practiced ease. She flattened each ball into a disk in her palm, carefully shaping the edges before sliding it into a saucepan of oil.

The falafel dough contains parsley, cilantro and a variety of spices like cumin and pepper. Getting the spice proportions right is always the hardest step for fellows, Abbas explained.

“It’s better to put in a little less. If they put in more, you can’t come back from that. In the beginning, it’s hard, but they’re learning fast,” Abbas said.

Before long, Abbas had a dozen identical disks bobbing in the oil, in various shades of green. She tapped the disks to flip them until they developed a crisp, light brown crust. She pressed each disk to the side of the saucepan to drain off oil before transferring it to a container. They looked factory-perfect. Maybe one was a shade greener than the rest of the batch.

As she worked, she kept a watchful eye on the fellows packing rice into lunch boxes and slicing onions.

Abbas took the batch out to the front of the shop. Back to the sales counter, she started to assemble the sandwich. She spread a fine, even layer of hummus on the wrap to keep the falafel moist. This moisture is another distinguish feature of Havenly falafel, she said.

She pressed her factory-perfect falafel into the hummus, breaking the brown shell. She ladled the parsley salad tabouleh on top, then the amba made from pickled mango, lemon, salt and pickled vegetables.

Abbas rolled the wrap tightly and folded the sides into the cylinder and put it on a panini press.

Everything in the falafel wrap has to be fresh, Abbas explained. The falafel balls must be fried right before eating, and the wrap doesn’t taste the same if it’s left to cool for an hour.

And ideally, the sandwich would be washed down with cardamom tea.

“After falafel and tea, you will go to another world. You will feel completely relaxed in your spirit,” Abbas said.

The falafel sandwich and tea cost $9.09, plus tax. Roughly $10 for a heavenly, Havenly lunch.

Previous coverage of recommended take-orders to help keep local businesses survive the pandemic:

• Today’s Special: Haci’s Napoletana Pie
• Today’s Special: Walkers’ Brie On Baguette