I had a pound of adzuki beans in the pantry that were a couple of years old. I'm trying to use up stuff like that. So a week ago I made some falafel with half of them, although I think falafel is supposed to have a bunch of fresh parsley in it and mine just had onions, garlic, black pepper (a lot!), coriander, and cumin. The beans were soaked but raw. Ground everything up in a food processor until it was still gritty but pasty. Refrigerated it for a few hours, then formed into little turds and fried them in oil. I ate them with pita bread, that Greek yogurt and cucumber sauce that I can't spell, raw red onions, and tomatoes.
Yesterday I cooked the rest of them the same way except I forgot to add the cumin. And they almost tasted like beef, especially when eaten cold. The texture and color was even right. I think I'm going to get some small red beans (adzukis are expensive and hard to find) and try it again. Cut way back on the spices, and add dried mushrooms and beef bouillon for umami, and make larger patties.
I've looked for something similar on the Internet and it doesn't seem to exist; everybody always fully cooks the beans first or uses canned, and then add fillers and binders to get them to hold together. With raw beans you don't need that. Adzuki beans are low in lectins but I don't know about black beans and small reds, so I should probably boil them for 10 minutes just in case the frying is not long enough cooking to deactivate the phytohemagglutinin. That should still be raw enough to work. (AFAIK, red kidney beans are the only ones toxic enough to actually be dangerous)
