- Today Jamie and Baz are each cooking up
some ridiculous dishes using entirely frozen ingredients.
Chef Ben will be trying them at the very end
with no idea that they're entirely from frozen.
So question is, can these two fool him,
or will he figure it out?
(dramatic music)
Boys, start cooking in three, two, one, unfreeze.
- So the hero of my dish is frozen sausages.
Already seasoned, need to be defrosted.
Into a bowl, cover with warm water,
and then the temperature should equalise.
- Sorry, what part of entirely frozen do you not understand?
We can get you some water if you'd like it.
- Yeah, I like some water, please.
I don't like this.
(Jamie laughs)
- So we're giving the boys salt, pepper, oil.
Otherwise everything else needs to be frozen.
- Can you boil ice? - We're gonna find out.
- I know that's a silly question.
- We're gonna find out.
- You fill a kettle with ice...
- What's gonna happen?
I don't know. - I don't know.
- We wouldn't recommend doing this at home.
- No. - Just say that.
- Right, so I think the best way to fool Ebbers
is gonna be through nostalgia.
Now, I know for a fact
that one of his favourite dishes of all time,
the first thing he ever cooked,
was a classic fish pie.
So I'm going for mixed seafood
swimming in a beautiful creamy bechamel sauce
topped with mashed potato that is buttery, crisped on top,
and then for a little bit of added flair,
we're gonna add in a few prawns sticking out the top,
but not just any prawns,
the biggest prawns you've ever seen.
Stargazy pie style.
- You're making the stargazy pie that we reviewed.
- Something like that, yeah.
I'm starting with a classic base of sofrito.
It's already pre-chopped.
It's already pre-frozen.
It's going into a pan with a little bit of non-frozen oil.
- Hey, surprising.
Turns out that much ice doesn't make that much water.
- Oh no.
(group laughs)
- I'm defrosting some pre-made bechamel sauce,
some pre-made lemon butter
and some cauliflower cheese in the microwave.
Then I'm gonna whack it into a blender,
whizz it all up,
add it to our sofrito base.
- You can get frozen bechamel?
- Yes boy.
- So he's brought a deconstructed ready meal
to reconstruct it into a ready meal.
- Work smarter, not harder.
And if it fools Ebbers,
then we take the chef's jacket off him.
- Okay, picture this dish.
- I'm excited.
- Miso pork balls with a herby fricassee sauce,
crispy chilies and garlic,
with a side of potatoey dumplings or-
- Gnocchi. - Gnocchi, yeah.
- Meatballs and gnocchi. - Jolly gnocchi.
- So it's Italian.
- It's more Japanese.
- Right.
(Barry laughs)
- It starts with miso butter pellets,
frozen shallots to soften off, chilis,
and some chopped garlic, as well.
- Miso butter.
- Miso- - Frozen miso butter.
- I know.
- How did you find that?
That is excellent.
- The frozen aisle in some supermarkets will blow your mind.
- Do frozen chilies taste as hot as fresh chilies?
- Good question.
- So I have most of these ingredients at home in my freezer.
Here's a test.
Frozen garlic. - Yes.
- I think I use double amount
of frozen garlic than I do normal garlic at home
because the edge is taken off. - Oh, not very economical.
- Eat that raw.
- It's pre chopped, as well.
- Genuinely, though, it's nowhere near as punchy.
- No, it's not.
- [Kush] It's nice, though.
- Exactly.
- It's sharp as it defrosts in your mouth.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- It's not as powerful as the fresh.
- [Mike] No, it's not.
- [Barry] Now these are defrosted.
Gotta pull the meat out of the skins
so I can start making my balls.
- Now, at this point you usually peel the film lid back,
give it a stir, replace the film lid,
put it back in for another half of the time.
We're gonna put it straight into our blender.
- Jay, you're essentially creating content
by redelivering the packet instructions.
- Yes.
(Mike laughs)
So our bechamel...
- Oh, yum.
- And lemon butter has defrosted.
I'll whack that into the Vitamix, as well.
(blender whirs)
- Baz, do you feel threatened by Jamie's dish?
- He's pierced a mac and cheese.
He's melted a pre-made bechamel.
I think I'm okay.
- [Kush] I think he's just-
- I'm threatened by the prawns
'cause they're some good-looking prawns.
- I'm threatened by the prawns.
Have you seen the size of them?
- They're massive.
- I do think that Jay has just made creamy soup, though,
with nothing to thicken it up.
He could've blended a bit of potato into it.
- Jay, are you happy with the thickness of your bechamel?
- It's quite loose, which is a concern,
but I've had a thought.
- Oh yes, I think you've started something great.
- Have you got potato smileys?
- We'll come to that.
- [Mike] Are you gonna use all of them?
- [Barry] Yes.
- No you're not. - Don't worry.
There will still be potato smileys at the end.
- You're not gonna use all of them.
- I will deal with them.
(potato smileys rattling in blender)
What?
What are you doing?
- They're not smiling anymore.
- No!
I need those.
- I like the way that he took Barry's potato smileys
rather than using his own frozen mashed potato.
- Oh no, but I need that later.
(group laughs)
- I mean, everything here is frozen,
and there will no doubt be ingredients that are just as good
if not better frozen.
Other ingredients not so good as fresh.
- Correct. - Frozen.
Is there a balance here?
Like, what particularly stands out that we can use at home?
- I'd say the majority of Jamie's ingredients,
by the looks of it.
Frozen seafood, a lot of it's frozen at sea on the ships,
so by the time it comes back,
it's just as fresh when it comes off the boat.
- So considering you're only using frozen foods,
none of the go-to saviours, I'd say,
things like citrus, herbs, like fresh herbs, spices.
How are you accounting for the lack of those
with the ingredients that you've chosen to ensure
that there's tonnes of flavour in these dishes?
- For my mash, I'm not just using butter.
I'm using smoked butter.
- Okay.
- So I'm just adding in flavour where I can,
like that pre-made bechamel, things like that.
Where can I already have flavour
that I don't have to add again?
- I'm relying on some of the smarter packets available.
Like, there's this Thai and green herb portions here.
These I think is a combination of coriander, garlic,
ginger, lemongrass, green chilli, lime leaf,
and rapeseed oil.
This is gonna go into my sausage mix, but-
- To give you the flavour of the spices.
- There's a bunch of things there that
if I bought them all individually,
I'd be spending quite a lot of money.
Because they're in one bag,
it makes life a little bit easier.
- So that's almost like a Thai green curry paste.
- Yeah. - That colour's fantastic.
- It is super, super green.
- [Kush] Jamie looks lost.
- Are you okay, Jay?
- I feel like I might've missed a step.
I didn't put any garlic in with my sofrito
before I put the bechamel on top.
So what I've done is add some wild garlic in,
which I think is gonna help to add
a little bit more "rawr" to-
- Wild garlic is one of those ingredients
that's hyper seasonal.
Grows in the UK in the south of the country
between March and June and it's best about April.
But it's wild.
It's foraged.
So ha finding it frozen and chopped in the supermarket.
- Wild garlic all year round.
- All year round.
- Next up, mash and butter.
I'm going to defrost it again,
but this time I'm gonna do it in the bain-marie
so I've got a bit more control.
- [Mike] If you're enjoying this,
there are some small things you can do
that make a big difference to us.
Like the video,
subscribe if you aren't,
click the notification bell and select all.
Thanks.
- This bit might take a while.
Can I have some help, please?
- You're qualified. - Yeah?
- Yep. - All right.
- [Barry] Come in, just...
- Are we asking for help?
- Well, like, literally-
- Don't worry, Jay, you've got me.
- Oh, yeah.
- So a little tip, Baz.
A bit of water on top of your pork stock.
- [Barry] Yeah.
- Grease your hands up.
The balls won't stick.
- Frozen seafood is such a great option.
Lots of it is frozen at sea on the boat,
which means that when you get hold of it at home,
it still tastes really fresh.
You may have heard that from Kush a few minutes ago,
but now there's context.
(Kush laughs)
So I've got a fish pie mix.
I've got some prawns.
I've got some scallops.
And we're gonna top it all off with these bad boys.
They're gonna go into my sauce mix.
Bring that to the boil.
Stir through some peas and some parsley.
And that's the base done.
- [Barry] I say, that is brilliant.
- What's going on?
- Check out this technique Kush is teaching me.
Look, basically technique-wise,
he essentially squeezes one out into my hand.
(Jamie laughs)
And he pinches at the right moment.
- No.
- This is a technique.
I learned this in Thailand.
I did. - Yeah, look.
- Bang. - It is brilliant.
- And by doing that, you pinch around it.
- Yeah, yeah.
- You kind of get us a ready-made ball.
- That's wonderful.
- My bain-marie's not working very well
in terms of melting my mashed potato,
so I feel like I might
have to revert back to the microwave.
- Cool. Thank you, Kush. Brilliant.
Oh, don't do it!
Ugh.
- I was really confident going into this
because I know I can create a dish.
I can create a fish pie from this.
Can I create a good fish pie is a really different question.
- Halfway through the challenge is probably not
the time to be asking yourself that.
- No.
- Add to my miso butter fricassee sauce
a selection of mushrooms going in frozen.
These are gonna be quite wet
so it's gonna also create my sauce.
- [Mike] Oh, nice.
- Okay, in with my balls.
So now my balls are in my mix.
This needs to stew a little bit and poach,
and ideally I wanna add some water.
- This is mad.
- Nice bit of smokeyness coming through.
Need some peps.
- You're using unsmoked salt in your smoked butter mash.
- [Jamie] Yeah.
- And smoked salt in your unsmoked fish sauce.
- Yes, to create a point of difference.
- Or it all tastes smokey.
- Or that.
- So next up I'm making our jolly gnocchi.
We need some bread.
We need some texture to it.
So we've got some frozen garlic and cheese bread
that I'm gonna crumble up into here and blitz up.
Just bear with, there's a plan.
And then for my jolly gnocchi, smiley potato faces.
- I'm still trying to work out,
are you taking the mickey out of me each time you say jolly?
(Barry babbles)
The only other time I've heard you say jolly
is when you're talking about me.
So I'm just trying to work out-
- No, not at all. - No? Right.
- These are, like, childhood classic.
- Family favourites, yeah.
What I'm doing, basically the reason they're jolly
is I'm using potato smileys.
- Why? So, hang on-
- Because these are, like, ready to go in the oven.
They're covered in oil already,
so they bake off beautifully.
What I'm doing is taking the oil on the outside
and putting it on the inside.
- I'm just seeing him take something that's already
in a package shape that he can just cook,
mashing it up and then repackaging it.
- Yeah, but he has to fool Ebbers,
and if he serves a potato smiley,
then it's gonna blow the whole thing.
- True.
I don't say it often, but very smart, Baz.
- Whoa, thanks, Kush.
- Oh, Jamie's whacked out his sack.
- [Mike] Love this.
Boys, we're getting there.
I really want you to be able to fool him.
- At this point I need to add some water.
- Will an ice cube blend up in that?
- He won't hurt the machine,
but it might take quite a while to first melt
and then bind with everything inside.
- Had a wipe down.
Poured out my potato and bready mixture.
It comes together nicely.
And now I need to turn this into my gnocchi balls,
my jolly gnocchi balls.
- So why have you got the breadcrumbs and the potato?
- If I was to do just the potato smiley faces,
they'd be too loose.
The bread keeps this together
and adds more flavour from the cheese
and the garlic, as well.
(upbeat music)
- How's this gonna work?
That's gonna...
- God, Jamie.
- That's it, crawling out.
- He's mad. - Good Lord.
- These are going into the oven
for 25 minutes or so to crisp up.
- [Kush] So what next, Baz?
- I'm done. - Hey, jolly gnocchi.
- I think he's talking to you.
- Can I have some help?
This is gonna take a bit of time.
- Or, Jamie, how about using up
the rest of those frozen peas and herbs
and making a little side dish for Ben?
- I'm gonna make a little side dish for Ben.
- Ugh, Kush!
- [Kush] Come on, Baz.
- I think one of my pans is ruined from,
it's so much caught at the bottom,
so I've taken all the saveable balls,
I'm putting 'em into here and put on a low heat.
I'm gonna blend this up and see how that tastes
and then maybe add that on top of everything else.
- I'm frying off shallots, garlic, in some oil,
with a little bit of the smoked butter, as well,
which I know has got a bit of chilli in it now.
And I'm gonna add some peas into it with some basil
and I'm gonna just blitz it up
and we're gonna have, like, a pea puree kind of thing
to go with it.
- You have about 20 minutes remaining.
- [Barry] Right, now, add two eyes and a smiley face
and we got ourselves some smiley faces again.
- What are you doing?
No, Barry, this is not...
This is Jamie behaviour.
- We'll double check if these work.
If not, we'll just go for just crispy gnocchi.
- You'll just put 'em face down.
- [Barry] Yeah.
- Oh, you're going for it.
- Whoa.
- [Barry] I dunno how much it needs.
It's quite strong, innit, that stuff?
- Yeah, it is.
- [Kush] I think you'll need a lot of the green
to combat the brown.
- [Barry] Yeah.
- [Mike] Are you happy with these, Baz?
- I think I'm okay. - They're looking good.
- I'm okay.
I mean, they're kind of like more-
- Chicken nuggety.
- Chicken nuggets slash donuts.
- If we don't tell Ben what the dishes are-
- [Barry] No, no.
- He won't know what to judge them against.
That's win-win.
- Broadly speaking, when you freeze an ingredient,
do you tend to lose flavour, texture, et cetera?
- So the most important thing when freezing is
how it's frozen.
In restaurants we'd always freeze items
that have been vacuum packed,
getting rid of all the air and oxygen.
That means that it won't react in the freezer
and it won't lose any of those flavours.
With these ingredients,
they're not vacuum packed, but they are sealed.
- But as soon as you open them...
- You will start to release those volatile compounds.
So I've suggested keeping it in the freezer
and then just taking a few pinches
or tablespoons out now and again.
- Boys, you have five minutes remaining.
- Fried off my ginger, my chilli.
Wild garlic, right.
Firstly, let's get rid of the juice
and unload this wild garlic.
That's how much water comes outta these things, bonkers.
- [Mike] 30 seconds remaining.
- Right, just plate up.
I'm happy with that colour now.
- [Mike and Kush] Ten, nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, three, two, one.
- Step away from the frozen dishes,
which are now cooked.
(electronic music)
- Smells great.
- Ebbers, are you ready?
- Yeah. I've got one big waft at the moment.
- Remove your blindfold in three, two, one.
- Oof, it's bright in here.
Wow, wow.
(Barry and Jamie laugh)
- Okay, Ben, so we're going me first.
What we have here is a miso butter
and herby pork sausage dish
and we have some jolly gnocchi for you.
- Jolly gnocchi.
Good consistency of sauce.
This looks golden and crispy and spicy.
Do you know what, that was absolutely delicious,
and what it is giving me is a pork version
of Thai fishcake vibes.
You've kind of got those Thai flavours,
but almost like overworked meat,
as we've done a couple of times,
that gives it that-
- Bounce. - Bounce.
It's very tasty.
- There's a lot of flavour in that sauce.
- They're very good.
They are the right level of crispy, fluffy,
and in a positive way, greasy.
- Ebbers, what I have cooked for you is my take
on a classic fish pie.
- That's why I'm very excited.
- With a smoky, buttery mash on top,
the biggest-ass prawns you've ever seen,
and some, what I like to refer to as mashy peas.
- That's really good. - Really.
- I don't understand why you two are so alarmed
at how good both of these taste.
- That's really good. (laughs)
- I like your kind of attempts at piping.
It's kind of a cross between, like,
DIY homestyle and Spaff style.
That is super delicious.
What I like is there is a lot of body to the fish pie.
There is sauce that binds it together,
but there's a lot of veg and a fair amount of fish
and then a whopping great big prawn.
- So we were given a theme to cook to.
Do you wanna hazard a guess what that theme might've been?
- When I took my blindfold off,
the first thing I thought was
we're bringing back big night in,
and the theme is, like, Friday night in dinner party.
The more I ate it,
the more I thought the theme might be
shoehorn in as many of the hacks and tips and tricks
and cheats that we've talked about on the channel.
- Okay, so do you think the theme has impacted
the overall quality of what's in front of you?
- I think both dishes are absolute delicious
and I wouldn't just want to eat on my own,
I would want to share with friends.
- Sir, congratulations. - Well done.
- Congratulations, everybody.
We've done it. We've done it.
(Jamie laughs)
- The theme for these dishes was that we had to cook them
using entirely frozen ingredients only.
- Ooh, very clever.
Interestingly, if I was to do something like a fish pie,
mixed fish, frozen peas, frozen prawns makes a lot of sense.
This I think is even more intriguing,
but both are delicious.
Now that makes sense why it looks like
you steamed your chopped herbs.
- Yeah, everything's a bit wet.
- I mean, one of the things that I learned was the amount
of frozen ingredients that you can buy
that are pre-prepared in some way.
They have other flavours added into them.
They're already there and they can be used
and put with other stuff.
Actually, it works.
As always, we took it to the extreme
and could only use frozen ingredients,
but actually, using part frozen part fresh
I think could get you a really great result.
- Yep, we have, we've touched on this before,
but also nutritionally you do need to work to upscale them,
but I wouldn't have known
that they were 100% frozen ingredients.
(Barry and Jamie clap) - Come on.
- Because they still feel fresh.
Ben Ebbrell likes jolly gnocchis,
also known as smiley faces.
Is that what they are?
Honestly, guys, genius.
Well done.