- [Jamie] We are SORTED, a group of mates from London
exploring the newest and best in the world of food
whilst trying to have a few laughs along the way.
(laughing)
We've got chefs, we've got normals,
(bleep)
and a whole world of stuff for you to explore.
But everything we do starts with you.
(upbeat music)
- Hello, I'm Barry and this is Michael.
- Can science help two normals out-chef a chef?
Before we start anything,
do we all know about MSG?
(playful music)
- [Barry] The human tongue is covered in
200 to 400 small bumps which contain taste buds.
Those taste buds contain taste receptors.
When you chew food, your saliva breaks it down
into smaller molecules so it can be
detected by those receptors.
They then identify which taste it is
and send an electrical impulse to your brain
so you can taste it.
Umami, basically, is the taste of savory.
It's why burgers, ramen, lasagnas,
and all that stuff are so delicious.
But what does this have to do with MSG?
Well, in 1908, some clever Japanese scientist
identified the exact chemistry of that savory flavor
whilst experimenting with kombu seaweed
and discovered that the amazing taste
was down to a naturally occurring salt protein
combination called monosodium glutamate M-S-G.
MSG has since been extracted, crystallized,
and exists as a powdered flavor enhancer
as well as naturally occurring in the cooking
of meats and mushrooms, etc.
A popular belief is that MSG can cause headaches
and other feelings of discomfort
but current studies have found no evidence to support this.
So the question is, can you improve the flavor
of your food by just adding MSG seasoning?
And can two normals use it to create a better burger
than a chef in a blind taste test?
In this challenge us normals and the chef
will have exactly the same ingredients to use.
We've got chuck and we've got brisket.
- Okay, from what I've read--
- The love the research that I've read up on.
- [Both] 70% lean meat, 30% fatty meat.
- Provides you with a fattier burger
and what does fat equal?
- Flavor. - Yes.
- So I'm going to weight this out.
I'm gonna experiment a little bit with the brisket
but I'll probably use more chuck than brisket
and then I'll top it up with fat.
Everything's got to be really cold
because it will heat through and the fat start melting
as it goes through the grinder.
- Next thing that we want to do is
to cube up our steak and mix it all together in a bowl.
So that when it goes into the grinder,
you're getting bits of each.
So it gets perfectly mixed together.
- If I stuff you, will you plunge me?
(grinder whirring)
Gonna add everything a little bit of time, push it down.
I'm also gonna add some beef dripping
because that's what I always do when I make burgers.
The dripping has been in the freezer.
That's my little hack.
And that just allows you to play with the fat a little bit
so that you can make sure the fat content's right.
What is that?
We're not using that, that's pathetic.
- Basically when all the fat spills out of the burger
it cooks in the fat rather than the fat
going around to other parts of the pan
and you're not able to utilize it.
- Fair enough.
Still looks silly, though doesn't it?
(laughs)
I'm gonna go straight out and say let's just form them.
The less you handle them, the better.
- [Jamie] So, if it's completely flat,
everything cooks at the same rate.
- [Mike] Yes.
- [James] Whereas, you've got nooks and crannies,
you get crispy bits, you get softer bits.
- I'm just gonna gently push it into
a ring that it is bigger than my bun
because they're gonna shrink as they cook.
I'm also gonna weigh my meat.
That's super important because
you don't want a patty that's too small,
you don't want a party that's too big.
I think I'm gonna go for like 120 grams
because one of the things that I love is a double patty.
My patties are shaped I've barely touched them
so I hope they're going to hold together.
To help that, it is essential that you chill your burgers
before you cook them.
All the fat's going to be cold
and then it's gonna render out as it cooks,
so I'm gonna put these in the freezer.
You could put it in the fridge, for a bit longer,
but the freezer's fine too.
(energetic music)
- Here's where we've got to so far.
We've cooked off two patties
at a very high heat which may or may not
have caused a fire alarm issue.
One patty had just salt and pepper on it.
The other one had salt pepper and MSG.
Cheers.
- I mean just off the bat, that's great.
- Tender in the middle, nice crispy outside.
- Okay, hold that thought.
It's a little bit rarer in the middle.
Do you know what, that tastes like pure steak.
- That tastes so much better.
- This is an issue because it really does work.
There have been a lot of articles
to test whether MSG as an isolated thing is addictive
and there's no evidence for it.
But I do keep on going back to that.
- I wonder though, it's not like
substance itself that is addictive
but the effect that it has on the food is so delicious
makes it addictive by nature rather than--
- [Mike] It's a dopamine thing, isn't it?
- Yeah.
Is that why we've never been addicted to Ben's food?
- Could be.
- I don't think this is very good for cooking burgers in
but it is good for getting a really good char on the buns.
So that's just gonna go on the heat
while I cook the burgers.
While the burgers are chilling,
I'm gonna focus on the rest of my fillings.
That's gonna be tomato, lettuce, onion,
cheese, and the sauce.
I have two options.
Number one is to keep it absolutely classic
and just slice it really thinly into rounds
and number two, is to make a comeback sauce.
You're gonna go rounds and I'm gonna dice the dill pickle
into the sauce.
(funky jazz music)
- [Jamie] I'm gonna toast up brioche buns in our burger pan
so it gets the flavors of burgers.
Is that toasty?
- [Mike] Yeah, that's decent.
- We haven't even talked about sauce.
- [Mike] I know, 50/50 tomato ketchup and mayo
and then an extra 20 of French.
- American mustard. - Making 120% of sauce.
- [Jamie] Surely, that's gonna win.
- That is most excellent.
- That's fantastic.
- Well done.
Pinch of MSG?
- Chuck it in.
- Right, sauce time, three, two, one.
Three tablespoons mayo, two tablespoons ketchup,
one tablespoon American mustard
(squelching)
and some dill pickle.
Final thing to do is lettuce into a bigger mixing bowl.
Mix a little bit of the sauce through it,
just so all kind of comes together.
- I think the fact that MSG is like a naturally
occurring substance and isn't something
that's been made in a lab.
I thought it was a chemical.
I thought it was something that been made by humans.
- [Mike] Like a synthetic chemical.
- To make things taste better and more addictive.
- It feels like a game-changer,
if it really does make everything tastes more umami-ish.
- Yeah.
- But then it also feels like an absolute cheat
and therefore there's something like immoral about it.
If it's gonna make normal people or home cooks'
food taste better, is it bad?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it's really interesting.
- I'm going to put a little bit of beef dripping
in the pan as well although these
could probably go into a dry pan
because there's so much fat in them.
I'm gonna preheat the pan
so I'm gonna wait a few minutes at least
until the pans are really, really hot.
(sizzling)
Once they're in the pan, I don't want to touch them
until I need to turn them.
They're quite cold so they won't cook too much in the middle
so I can leave them a little while,
flip them, color on the other side,
cheese on top, lid on, melt the cheese
and then they come out.
(energetic music)
- You've got to be ready to catch that
if I have to go and get fire alarm.
Take it off the heat.
- Blah.
(coughing) (laughing)
- I don't feel like I quite got the ooze from the cheese
that we were looking for, before I got so smoky in here.
that I couldn't see anything.
So, what I'm doing is taking a blowtorch to just the top
and it's just gonna be like grilling that cheese.
So, hopefully it starts to melt down a bit more.
- Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
- I'm thinking that that looks like--
- Yeah, MSG.
(laughing)
(glorious music)
- I'm quite nervous.
- I'm quite nervous as well.
- What have you got to be nervous about?
- You're nervous.
- You have nothing to lose.
- In fact, if anything, we've cheated.
- [Jamie] Go on, there Bares.
(rock guitar music)
- Straight off, two awesome looking burgers.
- Ugh, this makes me cry.
Cutting a burger is the worst.
- I do agree but--
- If you're gonna cut-- - You couldn't agree.
You do it every single time you have a burger.
- I do agree but wouldn't you hate it more
if I just ate it all?
Cross-section is good.
Little pink in the middle.
- [Jamie] Cheers.
- [All] Cheers.
- I like the crunch and taste of the gherkin.
The sweetness of the bun,
it's meaty.
I could happily stop there
and tell you that is a delicious burger.
Straight off, this is different in the sense
that it's double patty, so two thin patties.
- [All] Cheers.
(competitive intense music)
- I feel that is so beefy, it's almost
tastes like I'm eating it in a farmyard.
(laughing)
Do you know that kind of like, it almost tastes so bovine,
that you could be there.
(laughing)
- Wow, I'm glad I haven't got make a decision.
- Both are delicious.
I like the medium-rareness of the first burger
that's still a little bit more pink in the middle
but I favor of the two, was one with the double patty.
- [Mike] That was James' burger.
- [Jamie] James' burger.
- Yes. - Well done.
- I'm still a chef.
(laughing)
- I would happily have demolished an entire one of either
or possibly even both.
(clattering)
- There's another one here.
- Now. - What is this?
- This is different, again
because this is our exact same burger
but without MSG.
- I prefer this one to your first burger.
- Really? - Yeah, definitely.
- Why?
- Because it just tasted a little bit off
but maybe it's just 'cause I knew
but I don't think it was.
- It made one element of that burger better
which was the patty itself.
As soon as you've confused it with other flavors,
it just dissipates.
- It's interesting that you couldn't even notice it
or you know, it didn't even make it better.
So I think that answers a question in itself,
which is interesting.
- I sit on the fence on this one
because it has had a lot of negative press over the last
several decades but from what I've read,
I still don't understand why you would ever
need to add it into food.
If there is a risk and a chance,
and a small chance, however small it is,
that it might, even in small doses,
have a detrimental effect
and I also agree as I sit on that fence
as would excessive salt, excessive sugar,
excessive fat, excessive alcohol, excessive caffeine.
- Driving your car, leaving the house.
- Exactly.
- I'm really glad that you preferred
James' burger over ours.
- I actually feel that that was a good thing for humanity.
- If, by some miracle, we'd prove
that actually this powder can take away
all of that knowledge and you don't need it,
then, we might as well just pack up and go home.
- All right, so comment down below
on your thoughts on MSG.
Is it cheating?
- Now, we found loads of really interesting articles
whilst researching this and we've also linked out
to those down below.
So, you can go and inform yourself
and form your own opinions.
- Speaking of chefs, in this week's podcast,
we discuss, do you have to go
to culinary school to become a chef?
- It's a very, very interesting.
We get right into it and if you want to hear that
then you need to sign up to our club
and you can find out about all of that down below.
(energetic music)
Every Sunday we normally do a dad joke of the week
hosted by Jamie, he's not here,
but Barry's also a dad
and also really great at telling jokes.
- Shut up. - So it's up to him today.
- I hate this pressure.
Went to zoo the other day. - Yep.
- Saw a baguette in a cage.
Apparently, it was bread in captivity.
- Oh you nearly (laughs).
- I nearly screwed it.
God, I hate this.
As we mentioned, we don't just
make top-quality YouTube videos.
- [Man] Nope.
- [Barry] We've built the SORTED Club,
where we use the best things we've learned
to create stuff that's hopefully interesting
and useful to other food lovers.
Check it out if you're interested.
Thank you for watching and we'll see you in a few days.
(beeps)
- If you get your hips into it as well.
(sizzling)