Molly Yeh's Falafel Fattoush Salad

If you don’t know who Molly Yeh is, you’ve probably eaten something Yeh-inspired (Yeh is pronounced “Yay!”). If you’ve had a dessert with tahini in it, that’s Molly. If you’ve heard of hotdish and you don’t hail from a very specific part of the Midwest, also Molly. If it’s ever occurred to you to dress up a cake with bits of custom-colored marzipan, you’ve probably entered Molly’s orbit.

And that’s no surprise considering how prolific Molly’s influence is in the ever colliding worlds of cooking and entertainment. She’s written two cookbooks, stars in Girl Meets Farm on the Food Network, posts almost daily for a devoted social media following, and continues to write a successful, long-running blog.

Six years ago, Molly and her husband Nick moved from Brooklyn to his family’s generations-old sugar beet farm in Grand Forks, Minnesota. In fact, they live in Nick’s grandmother’s former home, the house where his dad grew up. She’s traveled the world for food, for music (she studied percussion at Juilliard and is a lover of classical music), and for the 2017 Pyeongchang Olympics (she’s a figure skating superfan).

While she was at school, the percussionists often observed story Waffle Shirt Wednesday, Food Stand Friday, and happy hour every day at Harry’s Burritos with Travis the chillest bartender in Manhattan. The percussionists were creatures of habit, which sometimes frustrated Molly when she'd want to try new cool restaurants downtown and all they’d want to do was go to Chipotle; but it also comforted her when she knew that she could "go to Harry’s any day at 4 p.m. and find Hammer and Kyle chain-smoking and drinking pre–studio class margaritas."

Food Stand Friday came about because of the really tasty lunch cart that parked on the corner right outside of Juilliard. The guys would usually get a pile of meat on rice while Molly would go for the very coriander-y falafel with white sauce and a little tiny bit of hot sauce.

An extra-crispy crust and the heavy hand on the coriander separated this falafel from the refined dainty herby balls that I later discovered downtown, but it’s probably a draw for which falafel in the world is my favorite. As long as it’s salty and crispy and not at all soggy, it pretty much has my vote.

Here, instead of stuffing falafel in a pita or serving over rice, I’ve counteracted the fried-ness with a bed of fresh vegetables, lemony sumac dressing, and squishy pita croutons. It’s not a traditional fattoush, but it’s a good one.