(egg cracking)
(bright music)
♪ Come on ♪
- Hello and welcome back to Sorted Food.
Now today we are testing our normals on spice blends again.
And there is a spiceology badge up for grabs.
However, last time you guys pointed out
there was a little bit of cheating
from one of our normals.
- Or poor judging.
- Yeah, you were overseeing the cheating happening, Ebbers.
You should have stamped it out.
- Which is why we're changing the game.
This time all answers count.
There is a spice blend each, they get progressively harder,
so we need to work out who goes first.
So before we can play the games,
we need to spin the wheel of names.
- What? - Wow.
- What are you doing?
- Where's the dice? - Wow.
- Well last time it was spice and dice
and everyone said it wasn't a dice it was a die
because there was only one of them
and die doesn't rhyme with spice
so I had to think of something else.
(all laughing)
So in theory, it is easier to go first.
I've spun the wheel.
And Mike, you're going first.
- Yes.
- [Ben] Followed by Barry, then Jamie.
- Come on. - Not again.
- You went last last time, didn't you?
- Yeah, it worked out really well.
(low music)
- So Mike, you can use all your senses,
see, smell, taste, you can have a little feel of them
if you think that's going to help.
But, we ask you to lock in your answers
at the end of your three minutes.
- Right.
I see.
- Your time starts now.
- Okay.
It's a seedy mix.
This is already hard so I think, uh, fennel or caraway.
(Ben groaning)
These aren't my locked in answers.
I'm riffing.
- So we think this is the easiest of all of them
on the basis that there are--
- Don't say that.
- The fewest of them, spices in the mix
and you can see them all.
None of them have been ground up.
So you have all the visual cues you need.
You haven't even got to sniffing and tasting yet.
- Okay, aniseed-y.
That has got to be fennel.
Is that a cumin seed?
Is that a caraway seed?
Okay, oh no, Ebbers, this is too hard.
- Remember spices could be a combination
of seeds, flowers, bark, roots.
Lock in your answer in five, four, three, two, one.
Stop.
Okay, I need five spices from you.
Rattle them off.
- Fennel, coriander seed, caraway.
- Two more.
- Black sesame, mustard seed.
It's not.
- Thanks Mike.
Answers locked in.
Let's bring in some food.
- This looks amazing.
- What you have is a pickled prawn pani puri
and it uses that spice blend
so it is a five spice blend called panch phoron
and it's kind of from Eastern India, Bangladeshi,
and it literally, panch means five.
So it's literally like an Indian five spice
used a lot in pickling things,
but we've created this wonderful dish for you.
- It's all going in.
(crunching)
- Cooked off prawns, then put through quite a dry,
almost pureed spice and then curry leaves as well.
- Wow.
- It's good, right?
- That's one of the best things I've eaten for a long time.
- I think it's a spice blend that perhaps
is less familiar in a lot of the UK Indian restaurants
but is very familiar across India
and it comes to a lot of pickles
and this is the pickled prawn, in the pani puri.
- It tastes really nice and spicy but not too spicy,
really sweet, really savory, like really leafy
and like almost herby, grassy.
It's absolutely delicious.
- It's all seeds.
It's got fennel seeds.
- [Mike] Yes.
- Cumin seeds. - Oh no.
- It's got fenugreek seeds.
- Oh.
- Quite unique to look at, but not always seen whole.
(Mike groans)
It's got mustard seeds.
- Yes.
- And nigella seeds.
(Mike groans)
Would also have accepted black onion seeds, same thing.
You got two out of five, 40 percent.
- Oh, I could have done better there
but I did very well out of a tasting, so I'm happy.
- Delicious dish.
Is that going to be enough to put you through to the final
to be in with a chance of winning a spiceology badge?
- I'm not at all confident.
- Next normal.
(bright music)
Okay, Baz.
- The champ is back.
- The chump is back.
(Barry laughing)
Your time starts now.
- (groaning)
This is not going to be an easy one.
- [Ben] Not visually no.
- I was hoping to see the spices.
Oh, oh no.
Please don't be jerk seasoning.
- Mate you made that mistake last time.
We're not going to give you that one.
- Cinnamon, clove, allspice.
It's that sort of world.
- There are six spices involved in this
and I will you need to lock in six answers.
- Six.
North Africa-ish is kind of a flavor I'm getting.
Maybe even a little bit Caribbean.
- Is that because you said cinnamon?
- It is making me go down the jerk chicken in a weird way.
- In five, four, three,
two, one.
What are you giving me?
- Cinnamon, cloves,
ground coriander,
cumin, allspice.
- And?
- Fennel.
- In that case, your answers are locked in, Barry,
and we'll bring you in some food.
- That is not jerk chicken, Ben.
- That is not a jerk chicken.
I think you were going down the savory route.
What you have in front of you is a specaloos.
- [Barry] What?
- Mille-feuille in a glass.
So layered dessert with specaloos
and that is spice blend we were looking for.
It's a sweet baking spice.
- Never heard of it.
- Yes you have.
You like Biscoff?
- Yeah.
- That is basically, a slightly simplified version of--
- No way. - That.
- It's not what I was getting.
- Well, have a taste because each of those layers
has been inspired by one of the spices
so when you eat it together it should be beautiful.
Cinnamon puff pastry sheets, nutmeg honey roasted figs,
clove and Biscoff infused rum jelly,
ginger cheesecake mousse, cardamom vanilla custard
and a white pepper crumble topping.
- Ooh.
- Journeys, right?
- You're right.
That is a really fruity, Biscoff pie.
- So specaloos, it's traditionally a spice blend
from the Netherlands and originated back in the 16, 1700's
when the Dutch-East Indian company would travel the world
and kind of tapped into the spice trade
that I think you were associating with
kind of North-East African, Moroccan spices as well
in the sense that it has that cinnamon, it has the clove.
Nutmeg, cardamom, white pepper, and ginger.
- Oh.
I can taste them all now.
They've been activated by the sugar almost.
- Yeah, interesting.
- And I wasn't thinking sweet.
I was thinking sweet, maybe I would have gone down that line
- I think your cumin, coriander curve ball with fennel
took you off piece with savory,
which means you only scored two out of six,
which is 33 and a third percent.
- Oh, you know what?
That might be brilliant.
I don't know.
- That's very true, you don't know
how the others got on, nor do we.
Will it be enough to get you through to the final
to give you a chance for the spiceology badge?
Bring on normal number three.
(bright music)
- I am terrible at this game.
- Jay, you may now lift the cloche.
- Oh.
It's got a mixture of identifiable things
and non-identifiable things.
That looks like black sesame, white sesame.
- At the end of the your time,
I'm going to ask you to lock in seven ingredients.
- Seven?
It's a bit smokey, a little bit citrus-y.
Whew, hello.
That's got some spice to it.
That's definitely got some spice to it.
There might be some chili in that.
Feel like this could work really nicely on grilled meats
but then I think lots of things work with grilled meat,
just grilled meats.
Ah, this is so hard.
What is that leafy thing?
There's a leafy thing in there, Ebbers.
- Jay, I'm going to need to lock in your seven answers
in five, four, three,
two, one.
- Here I go, shots in the dark.
I've got no idea how many I've got in my head.
So we're just going to go for it, okay?
Black onion seeds, nigella seeds, chili, curry leaf,
paprika, sesame seed, mustard.
- Need one more from you.
- Eee, cumin.
- Interesting, your answers are locked in.
Let's bring in some food.
- Okay, wow, that looks amazing.
What have I got?
- That is a shichimi roast duck ramen salad.
- Oh I like that.
I like the use of inverted comma there.
- So we have used Japanese seven spice, shichimi togarashi.
- Ugh, togarashi.
Oh, oh.
- Shichimi literally meaning seven flavors
so the number is in the name.
Dig in.
So we've deliberately chosen this because as a spice blend
it can just be used as a finishing seasoning,
sometimes you just get it on tables in Japan
as a condiment on the table to finish,
but here we've marinated the duck and then slow cooked that
but we've also used those cooking juices
to make kind of a dressing for the noodles
and we've sprinkled some on top of the egg
as a finishing seasoning as well.
So it's all the way through that dish.
- This is delicious.
When you're not tasting it on its own,
and it's therefore blended with the fats from the egg yolk
or the meat from the duck, that is very well balanced.
- You could see some of the seeds,
black sesame and white sesame,
but what's beautiful about shichimi togarashi
is it's also got the citrus, it's also got the seaweed,
it's got the ginger.
So it's kind of got warmth and citrus
to balance out the heat of chili and the kind of
numbing spice of schezwan, or Japanese pepper.
- What you've inadvertently done there Ebbers
is just tell me how badly I've done.
- So let's go through the ingredients.
Chili, plus Japanese pepper,
black sesame seeds and white sesame seeds.
I gave you one point because you just said sesame seed.
Ginger, seaweed, and citrus peel
which I think gave you two out of seven.
- That's not very good, is it?
- Solid 29 percent, to two significant figures.
- But I do get to eat this delicious meal.
- Unfortunate though Jay, it's not enough
to take you through to the final.
Mike and Barry both scored higher as a percentage
and will be in the final, competing for a spiceology badge.
- I'll just take my duck and ramen over
to the other side of the studio then, shall I?
- Ramen salad.
(dramatic music)
Surprised to see yourself in the final?
- I am.
(all laughing)
- Back where I belong.
Bring this badge back to me, come on?
- Who am I up against?
- Barry.
- Oh, he will be unbearable if he wins this badge again.
- Same rules as before, as few more herbs and spice to guess
You have three minutes to think
and then we'll lock in your answers.
Go.
- Oh, okay.
- Oh no.
So visually, it's just some brown powder with
oh, a little, a few little like twiggy bits.
Oh hang on, no, no, no, there's some detail here.
Okay, we can work with this.
It smells very earthy but almost like
there's some sort of citrus-y zing coming through as well.
- Oh no, not again.
(laughing)
- What do you mean, not again?
- Smells kind of jerk-y.
Oh.
- [Ben] You've got that on the brain.
- Hello, spice, sweet spice.
- I think I'm getting garlic, straight off the bat.
So we've got some twigs, what could those twigs be?
- There is lots going on.
I'm going to require from you 12 ingredients.
- 12?
- You've got a dozen chances to get it right.
- You're just given Barry an opportunity to do
what he did last time which is just rack off
any spices he can think of.
- This would work beautifully on chicken.
Get a nice kick of spice in there.
There's obviously a good powerful chili in there.
I'm getting sweetness so there's got to be
some sugar in there.
Is sugar a spice, does that count?
- Sugar and spice, and all things nice.
- There's a real savoriness to it.
- Last ten seconds.
- Could that be lemongrass.
- Five, four, three,
two, one.
What you got?
- There's chili, garlic powder, sugar,
thyme, cumin, paprika
- Halfway there.
- I'm going for allspice.
Pepper, onion granules as well.
Let's go for oregano as well.
Cayenne.
I'm trying to just think of another spice, Barry.
- Just any spice.
- Any spice now, I'm trying to think of another spice.
I'm panicking.
Mustard seeds.
- Okay, garlic, cayenne pepper, paprika.
I'm going to say celery salt.
I'm going onion.
- Six so far, halfway there.
- Cumin seeds, and then the leafy things are like-
I'm going to go, I know what they are
but I can't remember what they are,
so I'm going to say lemongrass.
It's not lemongrass.
Ginger, cinnamon.
- Two more.
I don't know about you,
but do you think there's still some thinking time going on?
- We'll go pepper.
I think we go white pepper because it's punchier
and bay.
- Your answers are locked in.
We'll get you both back in, and bring out some food.
- 12's a lot innit?
- [Ben] Boys what a treat.
- [Mike] It looks great.
This delicious ham pancake we're about to eat.
- What you have is a jerk spiced smoked watermelon
with banana pancakes and lime cream.
- [Barry] Over the course of two videos,
I think I've said jerk for every single round.
- [Mike] And this one is actually jerk.
- [Barry] And I bet I've lost it.
(all laughing)
- So origins in Jamaica and well, the verb to jerk
is what you basically to your meat.
So you poke it with holes and that also all those spices,
dry or wet marinade, to soak in.
So to jerk your meat.
- Stop saying that.
- [Ben] Means the poking to get the spices.
(crosstalk)
- Don't acknowledge him.
That sounds great, Ben.
It's bouncy.
- Should look like a ham from a far but inside.
- Oh, hello.
That looks great.
- Oh wow.
- There's a proper crust on it.
It's really nice.
- We've roasted this as is, but it's also amazing
if you've got a rotating grill
and you can do that on that,
an entire watermelon going round.
(all laughing)
- I was doing a chef-y.
- Yeah, sure.
- That's the reduced cooking liquid
which becomes really syrupy and spicy and delicious.
- Maybe I will wrap it.
- Again I wouldn't associate a jerk seasoning
with something sweet.
- Wow, that's excellent.
- Kind of doesn't taste like watermelon.
- It doesn't, it's got such a bite to it.
It tastes like burnt and crispy and caramelized.
Ah, and you get spicy.
- Lots going on in that spice blend.
We asked you for 12.
- Can I just say, before he starts?
- Right, what?
- If I win this, I'm not sure who looks more stupid.
- No it's not redemption.
- Me, or this chump here.
(Mike laughing)
The chump who took it away from me.
- It's like he made a mistake the first time around
and now he's going back on the mistake,
but making a mistake by making up on the mistake.
- So, scores on the doors.
See if I can remember what the 12 are now.
Onion, garlic, ginger, black pepper, cayenne pepper,
chili pepper, cumin, allspice,
nutmeg, thyme, and oregano.
I think that was all of them.
I can't, was that 12?
- [Barry] Damn.
- Mike, you got six and half out of twelve.
We gave you a half for pepper
even though you specified white pepper.
- I changed it to white pepper.
- And Barry, you got ten.
And therefore, today's winner
- [Mike] Ten!
- And you can have your spiceology badge back.
- I mean, to be fair, everything tastes like jerk to you
so I would've expected 12 out 12.
(Barry laughing)
- Well there we go guys, today we have been to India,
the Netherlands, Japan and Jamaica
but tell us down below,
what do you think of those spice blends
and perhaps suggest some for us
to test our normals on next time.
Comment down below.
- Also if you want to you can go to Twitter
to continue the conversation.
I think there's a hashtag trending called um,
justice for Barry.
- Oh shut up.
You can't create your own hashtag.
- I just did.
- Squid badge, hashtags.
(Barry laughing)
- [Jamie] Big news, you asked so we have reprinted
a limited number of our two most popular cookbooks
CBA to cook one and two, and they are going quick.
Meal packs users get a discount as always,
which you can sign up to free for a month
so I'll leave that one there.
Link is down below, and now for a hilarious blooper.
- This one really hurts.
Really hurts.
- Does it? - Yeah.
- You know what, I'm really happy it does.