(bowl dinging)
(egg cracking)
(oil sizzling)
- Hello, and welcome to Sorted Food.
Today, it is chefs versus the Internet.
- So, here's how it works.
We challenged Ben here,
and the incredible team of chefs here at Sorted,
to come up with their ultimate version of a dish
or recipe element.
- Likewise, our normal reaches out
for all of the expertise and experience on the internet
through social media, and then creates their own version.
- And to keep us on our toes,
we've been joined by pro chef and potato princess,
Poppy O'Toole, to judge a winner.
- So let's get down to it.
It's chefs versus TikTok in the ultimate
battle royale of dauphinoise.
(grunts)
- Game on.
(intense rock music)
- Three.
- Two.
- One.
- Dauph!
(laughing)
- Dauph.
(intense rock music)
- Generally, one thing I struggled with
when I go shopping for potatoes,
I always think there's so many different types.
I never know which one to go for, for what thing.
I end up picking the prettiest looking potato,
what should I look out for?
(laughing)
- It depends what you're making.
It depends what you're making.
So, you know, if you're going to go for a mash,
you want starch
cause you want the starch molecules
to be fluffy and separate.
But I think King Edward's is nice and starchy.
Maris Piper is a good all-rounder.
It can go into quite a few good things.
Ben what potato are you going for?
- Given we've got the princess of potato here,
I thought I'd keep it royal and go King Edward.
For me, deliberately chosen
because it is more starchy, more floret.
It's going to help to thicken the cream that we cook it in
and it will be much more unctuous.
- That's a good word.
- [Barry] It's his word of the month.
- Oh is it? Do you get a little calendar?
(laughs)
- I was advised to go for a Maris Piper.
It's a good all rounder,
but I do want a bit of starch content.
I do want something a little bit waxy
because we want to be able to bite through it.
We want some texture.
We don't want something really fluffy
that's going to fall apart.
- Chef Ebbers, Chebbers
what's the thing that makes
your dauphinoise jump out, then?
- It is going to be that kind of richness
of the creamy mixture,
slightly thickened by the starchiness of the King Edwards.
But it's all about the flavour of the cream as well.
So I've started with butter and sautéing off garlic,
but then I'm adding a kind of roasting hard herb.
So I'm talking rosemary, thyme, sage, chopped up added in,
along with the dairy to infuse slowly and gently.
- What's really good to see is
they've gone for a lot of butter,
which is always good with a potato.
- You're such a chef.
- Not traditional in any way,
but the wonderful Tik Tok community shouted at me to add
some bacon in, and who am I to argue?
So basically what I'm doing is frying off some bacon
in some butter, adding some garlic,
and then I'm going to add my cream and milk mixture,
which we'll get to in a sec, to all of that flavour.
All the advice I was given: the ratio three to one,
double cream to whole milk.
- I love how he's saying "advice".
So he doesn't get-if he ruins it,
it's not him, it's someone else.
(laughs)
All advice.
- But interestingly, that ratio is really important.
I think traditionally, it would have just been milk.
And it's the starch and the potato.
I think it's only more recent.
And I say traditionally like Escoffier and like,
old school.
So, but now I think we associate it with cream.
So, we've kind of got a mixture, a blend,
but mine is one and a half times and yours is three times.
Three cream, two milk.
- Ooh.
Here we go.
Already a point of difference.
- Whenever I've made them,
and I've seen them be made by professional,
other professional chefs as well.
- Oh, do you want to try to drop a name?
- I do want to drop the name.
I've been trying to get it in all day.
Michel Roux Jr.
- Ah, there it is.
Ah, got it for you, sorry.
- Good, just get up.
He made one in front of my eyes,
but it was...
He called it a gratin more, but it was very much similar,
but it was just cream, fried up the potatoes first to get
them a bit of colour, and then put smoked salmon in it.
Now that is that kind of bridge between classic and
bringing new flavours to it.
- Yeah.
- That smoky richness that you get from salmon,
I feel like is a smoky richness.
you're going to get from his kind of
bacon pancetta kind of vibe.
- Yeah.
- But there's also versions out there that use things like
anchovies in the cream that give you that richness and saltiness
Another classic flavour, a little nutmeg.
- You playing Tetris with that?
- Yeah.
Interesting tip was fill the pan that you're going to bake
it in with potatoes and if they kind of fit,
that's a good rule.
- Interestingly that the normal is choosing
to peel your potatoes.
- Yeah.
- I'm not going to.
(gasps)
- What?
- And I think this might divide people,
but all the extra flavour, all the extra fibre,
little bit extra texture on sort of crunchy bits...
for me, I'm not going to.
- I'm with you on that.
I'm anti-peeler.
- Oh are you?
- Don't get it, don't see the point of it.
- Oh, no, I think for something like this,
it's an intricate, well,
it's a delicious decadent dish,
but it's meant to be a little bit classy.
You want to put a lot of effort into it.
So I would always peel, I'd always peel.
- Really?
- I've opted to chop it up, to get more surface area
as it fries in the butter, but more important than that,
I'm now going to blend it,
so we get all of the herbs into the cream.
- [Poppy] Wow.
- [Ben] Then, I will season it salty AF.
- That's the most uncool thing I've ever heard anyone say.
(laughs)
- As salty as the sea because actually we're not going to
season the potatoes and it needs to have plenty to absorb
into that.
Salt, pepper, and now the zest of lemon.
- So my creamy mixture,
that's going into my bacon-y, fatty, garlic-y mixture
with some nutmeg and a pinch of salt.
Don't want to oversalt it.
But I do need the seasoning to be heavy because the bacon is
already in there, it's already salty,
but I've got to get it spot on.
Bring that up to a boil,
then down to a simmer and in with my spuds.
- How are they not going to break?
- Everyone said use a mandolin
because it's a little bit more consistent.
I need them to the perfect thickness
between too thin and too thick.
So if they're that at that exact,
if they're that exact level,
they won't fall apart or break in the cream.
Jeopardy.
- Whilst our normal is taking Tik Tok advice
and using a mandolin,
as a chef, I haven't got time for that.
I'm backing them straight through the slice
and disc of a food processor.
I'm keeping the skin.
- Oh.
- That's cheating.
- I really thought you were going to bring out some skills
for a second there.
- [Poppy] Yeah, I thought he was going to say,
"as a chef, I'm going to smash through them
with a knife quicker than he can do in a mandolin",
but no, using a machine.
(Barry laughs)
- But there are points of difference here.
He's cooking his first, I'm not.
- Mike I like how you've taken loads of time, you know,
carefully and precisely mandolin-ing
and not chopping your fingers off.
And then you're just smashing a wooden spoon
in there and just (squelching noise).
- I'm trying to delicately make sure that they're covered.
(Poppy laughs)
But, you know.
- Yep.
- It's the cross between making it easier as a normal,
and getting it consistent enough to be consistent.
- I love that.
- Ebbers is bathing his potato in cream.
- You know the food's going to be good
when it slaps like that.
- Well it's sloppy,
and yeah, that's why I put it in a huge bowl
because the cream was warm and beautifully seasoned,
but I wanted to cool it down quick enough
because I don't want to pre-cook my potatoes.
As King Edwards, they will go quite flowery.
- Ooh, fighting talk.
- I want that to happen.
I want that to happen in the dish.
- How do you feel about him slagging off
you pre-cooking your potatoes there, Mike?
(Poppy laughs)
- If he wants to take on TikTok on his own,
then good for him.
- You ready for more controversy?
- Absolutely Ebbers.
- As a food team, we quite like the idea,
this big and nice rustic dish,
but paired with some crunchy bits,
which is why we left the skin on.
So now, having mixed it all up in the cream,
a bit like when you scatter a deck of cards
across the floor,
now kind of shuffle them all back together
and then they go into the dish stood up.
So it's almost hasselback-y,
- Yeah.
- In terms of the layers of
just going the other way.
- Well, this is...
- Controversial.
- It is controversial.
I like it.
It's definitely taking the classic
somewhere else completely.
- [Barry] Yeah.
- [Mike] So I'm now just rubbing some butter
on the inside of my baking tray to make sure
that there's stickage.
And then, potatoes in.
Cover with cream until just above the potatoes.
Now into the oven at 170,
for 20 minutes covered with tinfoil,
then I'm going to lift it and put some cheese on it,
turn it into a gratin and probably get scowled at by Poppy.
- Now I don't want mine to be perfect,
but I do want it to be tight, well-packed in.
So I'm finding any last slot that I can just slide a few
more in.
I'm adding all of that wonderful cream.
So there's plenty sticking out that will go crispy,
but the bottom will begin to cook and go for
that like, flowery loveliness underneath.
with it all stacked up and creamed up,
I've now tin-foiled it,
and it's going to go into an oven at
200 degrees Celsius for half an hour,
just slightly start the cooking process.
then tin foil comes off,
but put it on a tray
because if any of that cream bubbles over,
mess in your oven.
Next, peel back the tinfoil,
grate over some gruyère and some cheddar.
Gratin-ate that, cause it's a gratin,
make the cheese all bubbly and gratinated
and hopefully, win the dauphinoise battle for the Internet.
(upbeat music)
(whoosh sound)
(upbeat music continues)
(whoosh sound)
- Okay, so Poppy, under cloche A we have the chef's version.
Under B, we have the TikTok version.
- Ooh.
Ooh.
- [Mike] That looks cool (laughs)
- That looks very, very delicious.
- This is our effort from the three Sorted chefs.
And I think this is representing chefs all over the world.
- So this is the TikTok version.
- Wow.
Gah.
Two very different dauphinoise.
- [Poppy] Very different.
Oh, well that's a large portion.
(upbeat music)
- Oh that cut well.
(plate scratches)
- Okay, chef Ben's first and the team of Chefs.
Mmm.
- That's the noise you want.
- That is delicious.
There's enough softness of the potatoes underneath.
They give you that kind of like creamy texture.
And then you get that crispy bit on top,
which is pretty delectable.
That's going to be very difficult.
Hang on, next one.
This is the TikTok version.
- Some people would call it less dauphinoise,
and more an abomination.
- I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
I can't work it out.
- It's really good.
It is very different.
The smokiness of the bacon or the pancetta
is just delicious on this one.
I can't have it-
I don't have any more words to describe "delicious"
apart from "delicious",
and it really comes through and it's very, very salty
and you've got the cheese and the cream and
all that texture.
But then this one, you've got that kind of
infused cream flavour with all the herbs,
which is another element.
That's very dirty.
This is very delicious.
(Poppy groans)
- I'm really sorry, Poppy,
but we're going to have to push you for a winner.
Does your win go to Ben and the Sorted chefs?
Or does it go to Mike and the TikTok community?
- Oh no, this is so hard!
Um, okay, so...
[intense music]
It's going to have to be TikTok.
It's TikTok.
It's TikTok. Look at it! I'm sorry!
(clapping)
- Congratulations!
- Your cheese and bacon have saved it for you.
- It's always the cheese and bacon.
That's all you ever need to do to win. (laughs)
Maris Piper too!
- Wow, wow.
- So over to you guys did the right dish win today?
The Internet takes it now,
but what would you say?
Comment down below.
- If I'm honest, I thought I liked Poppy,
and I was going to tell you
to go check her out on her channels
in the links downstairs.
- You should definitely do that.
Massive thank you to everyone on TikTok
who helped craft this recipe.
We did it!
We took the win!
We beat the chefs!
- I want to taste them now.
(Poppy laughs)
- Yeah, let's get over there.
Spoon. Classic.
- Oh, that was genuinely difficult.
I'm such a traitor. I'm such a traitor.
- We have an app.
It's called Meal Packs and it helps you plan
and then cook a weeks worth of meals
using one set of ingredients, saving you money,
cutting down on food waste,
and answering the age old question:
"What shall we have for dinner?"
It's free to try for a whole month.
The link is in the description box below.
(Jazz music plays)
(beep)
- Sorry, I'm so sorry.I don't hate you, I promise. (laughs)