(intense music)
- Over the last two and a half years,
we have been testing the chefy skills
of our normal home cooks through a series
of cooking challenges, knife skills, teamwork,
improvisation, organization.
But this is the final epic challenge where one
of our normals will be crowned Sorted Sous Chef.
They'll each be cooking a starter, main course,
and dessert for a panel of all star pro chef judges
using the skills they've learned to take the win.
- [Barry] Don't know what they want from us.
- I think this is very clever.
- I'm unsure about this.
- [Ben] And with Mike finishing last in the final badges
leaderboard, he'll be starting with a 10 minute penalty.
Today is all about the starters.
(light upbeat music)
- How are we feeling boys? - Really, really nervous.
- It's a long journey ahead.
- Been dreading this day. (laughs)
- Oh, I actually woke up last night in a sweat.
- [Barry & Jamie] So did I.
- Did you really? - Same.
- Why do we care so much?
- I don't know.
- Right. Starter.
- And you can't start for 10 minutes.
- Because of my performance over two and a half years.
(all laughing)
Good luck, boys.
I'm gonna need every minute I'm in such trouble.
(bell dings)
- Good luck. - Good luck.
(upbeat music)
- [Jamie] How does the mandolin, how does the mandolin work?
- Jay, it's been 30 seconds and you're asking questions.
- No, I know, but I don't think it's on prop,
I don't think it's-
- Just use your knife skills that you've learned, mate.
I don't need the mandolin.
I've learned how to cut thin.
- We're gonna have to.
oh, what the, that seems-.
No, no.
(mandolin clicks)
I nailed it. Watch my fingers.
- Oh, this is so tough.
- Now my finest moment on Sorted was back when
we were doing a grocery shop challenge,
and I, off the cuff, made a Turkish eggs recipe.
- I remember that, that was-
- [Barry] It was a moment.
- It was stunning. - I reveled in
and to this day I'm still doing it.
But this time I'm trying to work out ways of leveling it up
and making it more chefy.
It's something you'd expect to see in a restaurant.
Mike, in eight minutes time, what are you making?
- Bruschetta.
- Well, you should be fine.
That takes two minutes to make.
- Exactly. Yeah.
- I've only got like a basil oil to make
and a smoked ricotta. - A what?
- Confit garlic.
Confit probably takes ages.
This is my punishment.
This is what you get when you don't cook well.
Jay, what are you making?
- Right, my menu today is inspired by all of the judges
that are coming in to judge us.
I've got potato dishes, I've got french dishes,
I've got oyster dishes.
So the starter is a smoked venison tartare
with the Prince's pickles.
- [Mike] Ah, the pickles that we used
for the Earthshot Burger.
- [Jamie] Yeah, but I'm making them.
I haven't just used the leftovers.
- [Mike] Okay, good for you.
- [Jamie] Yeah.
- It's the reason that we care so much.
Obviously, we've got a table of professional chefs,
and we don't want to disappoint them.
But, is it also a little bit that one of us gets
to wear the Red Apron herein,
and instantly lifts you above the other two.
And it's gonna be painstaking if
I haven't got that Red Apron,
and I have to watch one of you wear it
every single time we cook.
- Yeah, bragging rights is what we live for.
- [Mike] It's so true. (all laughing)
- It really, really is, isn't it?
- This is a reminder of bragging rights every time
we press roll on the camera. - Yeah.
- Next up my tartare mix.
Now, usually you'd go for steak tartare,
but I thought let's blow these chefs out of the water.
Let's go for something a little bit more deer,
if you know what I'm saying.
Venison tartare. - Oh God!
- Starts with some diced shallot,
adding in three tablespoons of red wine vinegar.
And then we'll get onto toasting some spices.
- I've got two minutes and then I'm in.
- Another cooking battle that I famously won
was the nachos battle. (Mike laughing)
Well, I actually didn't even make nachos and I still won.
So I'm doing it again.
I'm taking flour tortillas, wrapping it around
- I'm, I'm, I'm! (laughs) - a metal tube.
Twine it, fry it. Tart case.
- Oh, I've got so much to make up for.
Okay, bruschetta deconstructed on a plate in individual
elements so that when people run a spoon from right to left,
they get all the flavors.
Boom. Delicious.
And I'm calling it swipe right for bruschetta.
- What? - One of those elements
are confit garlics.
Chucking some garlic in a pan with some oil.
I'm gonna slowly heat that through.
Hopefully, it will come to around about 90 degrees C
and stay there.
Meanwhile, I need to chop up some really delicious
seasonal heritage tomatoes, lots of different colors.
I'm gonna salt those with flaky sea salt
to start bringing out all the delicious umams.
And then I'll figure out what else I'm doing.
Like a basil oil.
And like for focaccia breadcrumbs.
Oh, and a smoked ricotta.
I don't have the time. (Jamie laughing)
- Everything's an experiment. (laughs)
- [Mike] If you are enjoying this,
there are some small things you can do
that make a big difference to us.
Like the video. (computer mouse clicks)
Subscribe, if you aren't. (computer mouse clicks)
- Click the notification bell (bell rings)
and select all. (computer mouse clicks)
Thanks.
- So the basil component of my bruschetta
is going to be a basil oil.
Oil 120. Basil in.
I'm literally blanching this for about 10 seconds.
And then it goes in here to be stick blended.
(blender whirring)
Gonna have that sit there to basically
infuse.
- Venison's been in the freezer,
so it's gonna make it easier to dice.
I'm off to get it.
- This is me getting my venison.
I got it.
(upbeat music)
I've added in my spices.
I'm now gonna add my shallots into my venison mix.
We'll get it onto a tray, cling film it all up.
Poke a little hole and then add some smokes.
(upbeat music)
- [Barry] Lowering in my flower tortilla basket.
Oh no, it floats.
I didn't think of that.
(upbeat music)
- Here I have some delicious flatbread focaccia thins.
I'm gonna blend them up into a breadcrumb.
They're gonna form the bread part of my bruschetta.
(upbeat music)
- [Barry] What is going on? It's so smokey.
- [Jamie] What are you doing?
You've got so much smoke in there.
- Done.
- What's under there?
- Ricotta.
- The next step is to get egg yolks
from my little quails eggs.
So I'm gonna have to separate some quails eggs.
- [Mike] Basil's delicious.
Gonna season it with salt and pepper.
Oh, I really want to do that through a muslin
or cheesecloth, but that's as good as it's gonna get.
Five minutes left, boys.
How are we feeling?
- Yeah.
- I am worried. (chuckles)
(rock music)
- Plating time.
(rock music)
- [Jamie] I think I'm done, boys.
- Okay, let's plate and see if this concept works.
(rock music)
Yeah, that's me, that's me.
(rock music)
- Done. (laughs)
Looks all right.
Might taste like rubbish.
- [Mike] The chef skills challenge may end here for us,
but now you can learn and test your cooking skills
in a massive update over on our Sidekick app.
We've curated a load of cooking challenges
targeted to help you think
and cook more like a chef.
I'd particularly recommend the Anti-Huttlestorm Challenge
for developing mess free cooking.
It's helped me a lot.
They're totally achievable,
and the more you complete the better cook you'll become.
Plus you'll have some amazing food cooked in the process.
Try it out now for free by checking out the link below.
(upbeat music)
- What I'm really looking for in the starter
is something like light and fresh loads of like herbs.
- Yeah, absolutely, need to be light.
The portion control is very important, I think,
because you don't want something too big
before you start if you've got three courses.
So I think it's, yeah, it's a fair point.
- Bring it on. - Bring it on.
- Ladies and gentlemen. (all laughing)
Distinguished chefs.
Welcome.
Today for your starter, I would like to serve you
a smoked venison tartare with quails eggs,
and Prince William's pickles.
- Oh, wonderful.
- Amazing, this looks lovely.
- You know what it looks beautiful.
- [Philli] The colors are really popping.
- [Poppy] Oh yeah, absolutely.
I think, yeah, it looks beautiful
and it all looks like it's evenly chopped.
So we've got shallots in there
or some sort of onion situation.
- And what I would say is like,
hopefully it's not under smoked or over smoked.
- It's beautiful. It look very fresh.
I think the radish are slightly subtly on thicker size,
but hey, I like radishes.
So I think we should dig in.
- Let's go for it. - Yeah.
(upbeat music)
- Wow.
- What are we really looking for
in a tartare is nice acidity.
It's got the richness of the egg yolk.
- I need to be very cold as well, chef.
I hope it's very cold on the plate.
Hm mm hm.
- I love the acidity.
The seasoning is perfect, I'd say.
One thing that he could have done a bit better on
was the cut on the venison is a bit chunky,
and I don't feel any smoke going through it.
- I agree with all of that. (Philli laughs)
- I agree with all of that as well, except one thing,
I don't think the seasoning is actually very light.
I would've liked a bit more salt and cracked pepper in it.
And I completely agree with you, you know,
the meat is, could have been cut a bit more,
a bit smaller we'll say,
and a bit more with a bit more consistency into it.
It's a lovely dish.
- What I love is the in innovativeness of it.
I've never had a venison tartare before.
It's kind of got this different depth of gaminess.
It's a bit more rich.
I do agree with the smoke.
If you're saying it's smoked,
I want to get a little bit more smoke.
- Yeah. - But, it can be overpowering.
So, I get why that might not be quite so prevalent in it.
- I actually quite like the amount of onion
and the shallot that's in there.
It's quite, it gives it a nice freshness too there
- Yeah. - with the pickles as well.
It balances out the egg yolk
and the rich venison as well. - Yeah.
- The pickles are very nice.
I really like the, that was a very good add-on.
- The Prince William pickles. - Yeah, yeah.
That's a very good add-on.
Well done. Wonderful.
Well that's so wonderful.
- Strong start. - Strong start.
- Ooh. (hands tapping)
- Chefs, firstly, I must say it's an absolute pleasure
and honor to have some professional chefs finally
here who know what they're talking about.
(Franck imitates violin) -Barry you've got something
on your nose, Sweetie.
(all laughing)
- A bit of violin. (laughs)
- This is my Turkish egg tart.
- Ooh.
- [Barry] So the tart case is made
out of deep fried tortillas.
The filling is a yogurt and burnt aubergine
with lemon, garlic, and herbs,
topped of charred aubergine, spiced oils and dill.
And of course a hidden perfectly poached egg.
(Franck laughs)
- Thank you.
- Well, I like the description anyway, it looks-
- I think the look of it is beautiful.
I did not think that was gonna be tortillas around the edge.
- Honestly, I don't know how they did,
how he did it.
- No, me either, - I know.
- that looks really good.
- I think it's a brilliant, I think it's a brilliant idea.
- The thing is, we need a runny yoke.
If we don't have a runny yolk, it's failed.
(knife scraping)
- Ooh, look at that. - Oh, amazing.
- Look how runny it is.
Oh, that's beautiful.
- [Philli] That is beautiful.
- [Franck] That is beautiful. Very nice color as well.
It's very orange.
- It's quite large for a starter for one.
- I agree, I agree,
that's a very good point. - But obviously they are
doing it for three people to try.
So I kind of- - Yeah, we can-
- I'm going all in one quite viciously.
Oh, (beep) that's massive actually.
(all laughing)
(silverware scraping)
- Oh, it's a lot of garlic.
It doesn't bother me. I'm French.
I can eat garlic.
Oh, clever.
I think this is very clever.
I like that a lot, actually.
- I have gotta say.
That was delicious.
- Yeah.
- To hit everything it was a bit sweet.
- Yeah. - There was a kick
of chili and garlic.
There was texture, which was crunchy.
We got egg, which really creamed it all out.
We've got the yogurt in there, the aubergine,
the kind of charring of it.
That was- - Yep.
- very, very high for me.
- Yep, very nice presentation.
Lovely as well. Very fresh.
It's not too high, it's not too many,
too many things on the plates.
As much as I love garlic,
I think there is a tad too much of garlic.
- The tortilla frying it in this way is genius.
I think that's so cool,
and I have no idea how he's done it.
And it's great.
I would say there is a bit too much raw garlic.
If it was a roasted garlic,
it would've softened it out a little bit.
And that's what I'm still tasting.
But the egg, he has said it's perfectly poach.
And it is.
It is perfectly poached. - It's perfect poached yes.
- Well done. - That's very good.
- Hello chefs.
- Hello. - Hi.
- It's a pleasure to have you here.
You've each got a plate because of the concept.
So this dish is called swipe right for bruschetta.
It's a deconstructed bruschetta with a focaccia crumb,
a smoked ricotta, seasonal tomatoes, confit garlic.
And then you have a barrier so that
when you swipe from right to left,
you can scoop it all up onto a fork.
- [Poppy] I get it, I get it.
So you hold that and you swipe everything into it.
- [Philli] I'm so excited by this.
- This is fun. - This is so fun.
- It is fun.
(Philli banging)
- Yes! - Okay.
(Poppy crunching)
(light upbeat music)
(Philli crunching)
- Hmm. I'm surprised.
- I enjoyed the novelty of it.
I thought it's quite interactive,
but it would get people talking around it in a table like,
oh, this is fun, DA DA DA.
All the ingredients themselves were delicious.
I'm not sure if it needed another pinch of salt over it
and maybe something a bit more acidic.
The tomatoes weren't as acidic as I think they were.
They were meant to be the
acidity part of it. - I agree.
- And then the smoked ricotta was beautiful,
but there was a lot of it.
- Okay, well send me off a miss of salt,
come back with my salt.
But I think the bread was a bit too hard.
You know, it would've been nice when you scrap all around.
Then naturally the oil
and the sauce gets stuck into the bread.
And I've got a sensation when I ate it,
it was like eating cheese biscuit.
You know what I mean?
- Mm hm. - Yeah.
- And in term of the taste all together,
I think is very nice food pairing.
- Mm hm. - Yeah.
- I think it works.
- I think the idea of it
and the concept is so fun.
And I love going outta the box a little bit.
- Yeah.
- However, I would say that it's lacked on the salt,
as you guys picked up.
If it had an actual focaccia piece,
like freshly baked focaccia,
and then you swiped along
and then it would all like the basil oil
would like drench into it.
It'd be delicious.
- But, fun. - Fun.
- It was fun. - Very fun.
- Inventive. - And colorful. Very colorful.
- Colorful, yeah, and the basil oil is very well made.
- Yeah, this is gonna be hard on the starters.
- Well, that's what our judges thought.
But which of those dishes stood out to you?
Don't forget to check out the guest
chefs in the links down below.
And be sure to challenge yourself on our Sidekick app.
It's all still to play for,
as we move on to main course in the next episode.