- Welcome to Sorted Food.
Our normals have been learning, battling
and bickering for years now.
And quite rightly,
you've pointed out where on earth are they
on the scale of normal to chef?
So we've come up with a load of challenges
to test them on three core attributes
that we believe make a top chef.
Under each attribute, there's a whole bunch of skill badges
and the boys will have to compete to win them.
We'll tally them up as we go
and at the end, one of our normal will be crowned
the Ultimate Chef Skills Challenger.
(upbeat music)
So today we have the next episode
in our Ultimate Chef Skills Challenge series.
And today we're testing our normals on organisation.
So there are three badges up for grabs, basic efficiency,
basic equipment knowledge and basic time management.
Basically, I'm calling them basic.
Boys, you're ready for challenge one?
- Yes.
- That's the positivity I want.
(Jamie laughing)
(upbeat drum music)
Everything you need to know is underneath the cloche.
Good luck.
- Where the fuck is he, where is he going?
- Where's he gone?
- What just happened?
- Firstly, you can tell this is an Ebber's challenge
because something's been laminated.
- So you guys have been saying too often
that I give them too much help from the sidelines.
So let's see how they handle being all alone.
- Behind you is the recipe for a green bean pakora,
rice and avocado raita.
- However, the recipe tasks are all jumbled up.
You now have 10 minutes to organise this list
into a foolproof recipe.
- And your time starts now.
- This is so hard.
Top and tail the green beans, right.
- So it's 17 different instructions.
And there is a definite order that needs to be found,
so the recipe's achievable in 30 minutes.
- Prep stuffs got to come first.
So line of something with something.
- That's sensible logic.
But wrong in this instance.
- What?
Sorry, what's this equivalent rubbish about?
- You may also have clocked
that we have blanked out the equipment, that's a teaser
of the a challenge too. - Rice, slice, avocado.
- Pakora, rice, avocado raita.
- He's thinking about clustering ingredients,
which is clever.
For you guys at home, this is what they're aiming for.
We'll be looking for perfect fluffy Basmati rice,
individual grains, seasoned with lime
and all nice and buttery.
Then the pakoras should be kind of straggly,
but crispy and light with butter
and golden brown in colour.
To bind the whole firm together,
a wonderful, fresh, vibrant raita with cucumber,
mint vanished in yoghourt, which has a natural tang to it.
- The fucking, look at this.
- You've had three minutes.
- Hold up.
- He's now got his final instruction, serve, at number 11.
- Transfer, oh, look at this, it all works out.
It's a columns.
- Two and a half minutes remaining.
- Oh, two and a half minutes.
Add the avocado to the something that with the cucumber.
Damn it.
- His problem here, is that the water for the rice
needs to be way over here.
- I've got the last one, serve.
- He's got the last one in place.
So he knows the last instruction
on every single recipe is serve.
And he's still not putting it last.
- So, okay, we just need to,
oh, no.
It's all going wrong.
- Last 30 seconds.
- But
- That, that, that.
- Three, two, one,
step away from the Velcro.
- Oh.
- Was that stressful for you as it was for me?
- That was horrendous.
- Let's go to challenge number two.
Challenge number two. - You're a swine.
- You now have a recipe to follow,
but it's lacking equipment.
Now, every chef knows that really, they're only as good
as the equipment around them.
But, if you use equipment efficiently and logically,
then you can minimise mess and washing up at the end.
So we've blocked out all of the equipment that you require
and we've filled the kitchen with everything
including the kitchen sink.
You have five minutes to select the equipment you will need
for this recipe.
Anything you pick up, you don't use i.e. excess,
points will be deducted.
Likewise, anything you don't choose, you can't use.
Your five minutes start now.
- Oh, wow, that's evil.
- Well, first thing I'm going to do is grab my basics.
I definitely will need a chopping board and a chef's knife.
So, let's get that.
- Rinse the rice, rinse the rice with one of these.
The rice doesn't fall through.
- I tip it into a sauce pan, probably.
(upbeat music)
- Cover with a lid.
- Throughout this whole process,
we're looking at what's efficient in terms of size.
What size pan makes sense?
What size knife makes sense
so that the job can be done efficiently.
- Coarse grater for the cucumber into a, oh, bowl.
- Mike, you have half your time.
- Beat it with a whisk, you wouldn't beat it with a spoon,
would you?
- Oh, I need to measure it.
I need one of those.
I also need, this.
- You got 1 minute, 30 remaining.
- Line up, baking tray with baking paper.
- Remember points of deducted if there's too much equipment.
But you're pretty stuck if you haven't got enough.
- I probably slice the onion
and where is as vegetable peeler.
There's no vegetable peeler.
Why would you spread it all out?
- And the shallow fry pakora, I think it will be wise,
don't need too much oil, sensible.
- I'm gonna get a fork because they're useful.
- He's out of breath and he's got 50 seconds remaining.
- Great, the equipment, yap, great.
I can use my existing one, that'd be all right.
- Drain off any excess.
No, I don't need baking paper, I need kitchen towel.
Oh no, wait, hang on,
line up, kitchen. - Five, four,
three, two, one.
- Oh, Ebbers.
- Do I get my badge yet?
- Are you ready for challenge number three?
- No.
- Challenge number three.
You now have yourself a recipe, hopefully in the right order
and all the equipment, hopefully, that you require.
We've given you the ingredients.
We're also gonna put 30 minutes on the clock.
Plenty of time, if challenge one and two have gone to plan.
We want you to cook up this dish,
and although there is a time management badge up for grabs,
you will not get it if the dish doesn't taste
and look great.
You're ready? - No.
- 30 minutes starts now.
- I'm going to line my thing with thing,
which on reflection may not have been the best thing to do
straight away. - Correct.
And we should stress that you now have to follow your recipe
not what you would have wanted to do.
- Right, rinse my rice under running water.
This is my running water.
Lovely.
- Pour 217 mil of water.
(suspenseful music)
- There were two things available for you to use
and you didn't choose either.
- That's awful news.
Damn you, Ebbers.
- I've penalised you.
- You penalise me, give me the measure.
I'll eyeball the flour, that's fine,
that's not as important.
- Interesting that I was holding a jug and a set of scales.
And you said, "I'll take the jug."
- Oh no. - And I'll eyeball the flour.
- Oh you could do it on both.
- You could have done both with the scales.
Could also have done it in the pan with the rice
to avoid using the measuring jar.
- It's not dirty though, is it?
It's just got water in it.
Zesting my lime.
And there, I'll save my grater for later.
- That would be an interesting moment.
- Juice of the lime.
Problem with lime is once you've zested it,
is they become really slippery.
Butter going in. (upbeat music)
- So the next thing I'm going to do is grate a cucumber
and I picked a course grater into a bowl.
- Now, if this was me,
this would've been the first instruction.
- Oh, no. - So that the cucumber
has more time to release all of its water and juices,
whilst you move on to the rice.
- Season the cucumber with a generous pinch of salt.
So I assume that this is only seasoning it
but the salt draws out extra moisture, does it?
- Osmosis, exactly that.
- Pour the vegetable oil into an equipment.
Now, I've seen how much oil there is.
Maybe I could have done with a smaller pan.
Tip a 100 grammes of the flour into an equipment
with the garam masala, right?
- Garam masala, turmeric and chile,
beautiful combination of spices
for both colour and fragrance and heat.
- [Jamie] Slowly pour in 140 millilitres of water.
- Jamie, you've had just over 10 minutes, 20 to go.
- Tip and tail the green beans, half peel
and finely slice the onion,
then scatter the flour over them.
- Logic says, he's got rice in the pan
and it's not doing anything.
It would have made more sense to get the rice on,
and then 10 to 15 minutes that's cooking.
Then he could have chopped his onion.
In your original equipment fetching.
- Yes. - You read that instruction
and then you reached for a peeler.
- You're not gonna actually make me peel an onion
with a vegetable peeler, are you?
- No, but as per the rules,
you will be penalised for equipment you're not using.
- Oh, well, maybe I can use it later on, Ebbers.
- Three key components, really awesome for mid-week
and if you're liking the idea of it,
then you can give it a go, and so many other recipes
that are similar with the Meal Packs app.
And you can get that downloaded
on the App store or Google Play.
- Didn't put a timer on the rice, did I?
- No, you didn't.
So Jamie, you have had 17 and a half minutes.
- Oh, keep one hand dry, yes.
- Theory 12 and a half to go.
We won't stop you when you run out of time,
we'll see how much extra time this recipe takes you.
If at all.
Typically I would have moved the beans and onions
and butter making backwards,
so that you're doing it all combined when the oil is ready.
The fact that he's got it forward, not the end of the world,
the only differences is he's mixed it.
And he's had to wash his hands up,
in order to move on to the next thing.
Two, three minutes on one side and then flip them.
Now that you've used your butter,
I can probably point out it's a little bit thick.
Now, I guess this comes to not having had scales
because if you'd have the scales
and known what a 100 grammes of flour and 140 ml,
you'd have ended up with something that would've work.
- I'm gonna do another butter test, actually.
- No. - Oh, no, I'm not allowed.
- Run the cucumber under cold running water.
That's your next instruction.
You've had 21 minutes.
- Oh, no, okay.
- Grate the cucumber,
that's a very small grater for a cucumber, isn't it?
Yeah.
- Carry on, or are you gonna find another solution?
- No, I'm gonna (laughs) that's not what I want.
I'm going to finely dice.
- These are beautiful, copy that.
- I need to strain these over there
'cause they're done cooking, but that's number 17.
- Do it so we don't burn the food, obviously,
but it has been noted.
So picky today.
Now this is plain flour
but this can equally be done with gramme flour.
So a chickpea flour if you want to keep it gluten free.
- And now the avocado.
- 24 minutes in.
So typically, and again, to reduce equipment use,
you would add it to the bowl with the cucumber.
And then you mash it altogether
so you're doing it all in one.
- I'm guessing you would use the same mash with a folk
but I didn't wanna use an extra thing,
'cause I've already used the knife
and I can mash with a knife.
- Add the natural yoghourt, then finely chop the mint
and throw three quarter of it in.
Fast approaching the 30 minute mark, instruction number 12
says, places scatter over reserved mint and serve.
The five instructions that follow, presumably,
you do while you're eating at the table.
- Right, in goes my yoghourt from one bowl to another.
- And now you can see, just one extra thing to wash up.
Let these tiny, tiny, tiny things
aren't gonna make or break a dish.
But it is about being efficient.
- Oh, no, it says add the mint
and I haven't chopped the mint yet.
I'm gonna have to just tear it.
- You've had 27 minutes. - Ah (laughs) okay.
No, I haven't gotten long enough
Fry my pretties.
- Now, you've actually been quite calm and collected
and ordered as you followed your recipe,
which is a good thing.
- I didn't use that,
what are you? - However,
I should also point out your 30 minutes are up.
And had you have the recipe in the right order,
you probably would already be finished by now.
- [Jamie] Tasting spoon.
- Always season to taste is good.
Typically, if you've salted the cucumbers,
then you won't need a huge amount.
But because Jamie has diced his cucumber
rather than grated it, there's probably less surface area
for that salt to have had effect.
- Let's get this right now.
I don't want to go over time and then serve something crap.
- I tell you what, they look good.
- Oh, the smell of that lime, incredible with the rice.
(suspenseful music)
- So let's get some mint over the top
and please stop the timer.
- Stop the clock, please chef.
- Job done mate, job done.
- Can we look around the kitchen and note
songs hurtle storm, there's a bit of a gale,
but it's not a full on hurricane, is it?
- Good enough for a badge?
- Should we move to the judging?
Judging time, and I wanna say upfront,
in the spirit of fair testing,
I tasted all of your dishes
at the point when you serve them
so they were hot and fresh.
And I'm gonna caveat this judging
by saying they were all great mid-week meals.
And all three normals were a vast improvement
on Pass It On normals,
when we're judging you on organisation.
- There's no badges up for grabs in Pass It On. (laughs)
- But more specifically, Mike, your first.
- Ta-da.
- The first challenge we were judging you on efficiency.
It has a little bit of flapping
but ultimately you shuffled your 17 instructions
into an order that made sense.
There were only a couple out of place.
When it came to equipment, very methodical.
You had everything on the front bench that you needed.
And then when it came to time management and execution,
a delicious dish, that was well seasoned.
It was super yummy.
You did go a fair bit over the time,
but all in all, a damn good job.
And for that reason, I'm going to award you
one badge for efficiency and one badge for equipment.
- I'm happy with that.
- Jamie, your turn, lift the cloche.
- Ta-da.
- I should say it was super tasty,
crispiest butter, nice and light.
A good raita and excellent rice.
But when it comes to the challenges of organisation.
The first challenge, 17 instructions,
you put them in an order, quite a methodical process,
not great results.
When it came to actually cooking,
you had to do the most shuffling.
However, equipment, again a good logic
but you missed out a few fundamentals
including something to grate your cucumber.
But luckily you had a peeler to peel your onion.
- It's about balance and efficiency.
- Did you really peel your onion and pick up a peeler.
Oh, please tell me that he did that, did he?
- When it came to cooking,
I think you probably adapted the best.
And if this was a technique badge, you would have nailed it.
However, with time management,
you cooked it in the quickest time,
despite failures in the first and second challenge.
For that reason, Jamie,
I'm awarding one badge for time management.
- Oh, no. - Nope, that's it?
- There's a full stop there.
- Yep, yep, I'll have two pints of Lager.
- Barry, last but not least, lift the, okay.
- Did you head butt it?
- When it comes out to efficiency
of reorganising instructions,
although you attacked it with lots of effort,
it was still quite confused
and you had to shuffle quite a lot when it came to cooking.
In terms of method, you forgot some fundamentals.
Jug and or scales meant that you were eyeballing butter
and it ended up very thick and your pakoras
are somewhat chewy.
- You eyeballed your butter.
You could've used a peeler for that, mate.
- But when it came to cooking, challenge three,
you spotted your errors, you corrected some of them.
It wasn't the best tasting food
because of the lack of equipment.
And you were also overtime.
So today I'm awarding you zero badges.
- Nil-pwa - Nil-pwa.
- I mean that hurt me.
- Plenty more chances to pick up the badges
you didn't get today across the rest of the year.
Likewise, we can revoke them,
if you choose not to continue being organised
in the kitchen.
- Are there any badges you want to revoke today?
- No. - Just checking.
- Can I just say,
halfway through the day after my challenge,
my wife texts me asking what badges were up for grabs.
And I told her organisational badge
and she just texts back, oof.
And I got two of them, so I proved everyone wrong.
- Well, quite a roller coaster of an episode.
But if you want to give this recipe a go
and we promise all the steps are in the right order,
then don't forget you can get all the details
over on our Meal Packs app, links down below.
Also, plenty more badges up for grabs across the year.
We'd love to hear from you.
What badges should our normals be competing for,
comment down below.
- Really, no badges, Barry. - Oh, come off it.
(upbeat music)
- Why would you peel an onion without a peeler?
It doesn't make any sense.
- You getting a badge, makes no sense.