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(explosion)
- Hello and welcome to "Sorted."
Today, we have teamed up with "Try Lamb"
in challenging Jamie and Mike to the ultimate kebab battle.
And if expectations weren't high enough,
our chef James will be judging
the most delicious kebab
and naming our kebab king.
- You will kneel at my feet, as I am the kebab king.
- I have loftier ambitions.
- We're going to give you an entire hour
of active cooking time,
which means that while you're putting things
in the oven or under the grill, we will stop the clock.
We want the biggest, boldest flavours.
The most creative use of fresh ingredients
and two dishes that will be worthy
of putting the regrettable late night kebab
to bed forever.
- Are you ready?
The three, two, one, kebab.
- So, I'm changing tact.
I normally go big.
I do too much.
I get sweaty and I get stressed out.
So, instead I'm going big in flavours.
I'm going family style.
And my dish is broken into three components.
Amazingly, beautifully spiced,
charred lamb koftas.
I'm taking inspiration from the Greek style.
So, I'm serving it with a Greek style salad.
Delicious, cucumbery, garlicky Tzatziki,
and charred pita bread.
- I am going all out with my kebab,
with something that people don't usually make at home.
I'm going to make a lamb Doner kebab,
wrapped with chips inside it.
- You're not reinventing anything.
- I am!
- You're reinventing like 10 years ago, your uni days.
- I'm going to use a rotisserie grill
for that authentic experience, but you can do this
under a normal grill or even bake it like a meatloaf
in the oven.
First things first, I need to make my meat mixes.
I'm going to put onion and garlic and some spices
in a blender, whiz them all up.
- Lamb is one of those meats,
it just takes on all the flavours.
I think like lamb tagine and slow cooks.
I always love that kind of mixture of dried fruit
and cinnamon and spice with lamb.
Interestingly, you've gone for things like cinnamon
in this, to kind of almost play on that.
- Yup.
- Mike, why are you grating a cucumber?
- So, basically for this tzatziki,
I need to
grate a cucumber into a colander,
lined with paper because I'm going to basically drain
and squeeze out all of the moisture in the cucumber,
because if it's a damp cucumber and it goes into my yoghurt,
it's just going to leak everywhere.
I've got my yoghurt in a bowl.
And now I am grating in garlic.
The reason I'm doing this now is
because I want that yoghurt to basically take
on all that amazing garlicky flavour.
I'm adding extra virgin olive oil
and white wine vinegar, giving it a stir,
and this goes into the fridge to sit
for half an hour to take on all those amazing flavours.
- That's one third of your three items done Mike,
and one third of your time gone.
- Don't tell him, but I've still got more stuff to do
on that tzatziki.
- Now lamb can have a reputation
for being an expensive meat.
I'm using two different cuts of lamb in my kebab.
I'm using mince and lamb steaks, which are actually cheaper
than you might think,
and are perfect for the kebabs
because they are packed full of flavour.
And they will take on all of the flavour of the spices
that I'm going to add into them as well.
- The challenge for Jamie will then be
cooking this perfectly.
Because what will happen is as it cooks,
it will kind of all stick together as protein does.
But if he overcooks it, it dries out the mince,
although there's a nice level of kind of pastiness
with the onion as well.
When it carves, it could crumble, instead of slice.
I'm gonna blitz up my lamb mince,
and these spices.
Oregano, paprika, cumin, coriander,
all spice, cayenne pepper.
What the- you used all the cinnamon.
There's no cinnamon left.
- Mate, I left you some cinnamon.
- There's a fifth of a tablespoon of, of cinnamon.
- And how much do you need?
- Half a tablespoon, so I might get away with it.
- If you want to try and pick some
out of my spice blend, be my guest.
- That spice blend needs as much help as it can get, so.
I'm also adding grated onion.
I feel my eyes going. I can feel them going.
Fresh parsley, garlic and mint, into the processor.
I'm pulsing this together in a food processor.
It's really important not to overwork it.
So, it's nice and mushed.
I'm going to leave it.
- Having whizzed up my onion, garlic and spice blend
into a thick paste, that's going to go into my lamb mince.
I'm going to take my lamb steaks and I'm going to cut them
in half and then butterfly them to get really lovely,
thin steaks. That will go into a separate mixing bowl
with remaining quarter of my blend.
- How are you getting on, mate?
- It's all right.
This is all prep.
And now I'm going to, I'm about to get to the nervy bit
which is construction, which I'm terrified of.
I've added milk into my mince, as well.
To start this,
I need to thread an Apple onto my rotisserie skewer
and then I can start layering up my meat.
(guitar strumming)
- 30 minutes of active cooking time gone.
- Oh, wow.
- So, is this a traditional or is this a, a Spaff-nik?
- It's a spaff special.
Yeah. I'm not aiming for traditional.
Doner kebabs have centuries worth of history.
And I'm not even going to try and say that I understand all
of it, but going down to what the UK have done to them
over the last 50, 60 years, which I think most
of the world would agree has probably ruined them.
So, I'm trying to resurrect the UK's reputation.
So, and you're doing that by putting chips in a wrap
and putting meat on an apple.
- Mike's challenge is going to be to not overwork the meat,
so that it doesn't become tough, but also work it enough,
so it's not going to fall off the skewer.
And it's, it's a tight balance to get there.
- These just smell incredible.
Absolutely incredible.
Before they've even touched anything hot.
- Are you sure you're not smelling mine?
- (laughing)
Again, these go into a fridge and they rest,
taking all that flavour.
- I feel like I'm in the film "Ghost."
I've got Patrick Swayze. There we go.
- I mean...
- My lamb Christmas tree is finished.
I'm going to add my bottom skewer on
to keep that in place.
That will then go upside down,
which is really the right way up,
into the rotisserie grill.
Put that on for an hour or so.
See how we get on.
Off it goes!
Whilst that's spinning around, I've got a few minutes
to start cooking everything else
that's going to go into my kebabs.
First of all, oven chips,
then a white sauce and a red sauce. Job done.
- Both of you pretty much done on your lamb.
20 minutes remaining.
Certainly in the UK, I feel like lamb is,
is that thing that's saved for a Sunday.
Like a Sunday roast. - Oh yeah.
It's the thing that you remember
your grandparents used to do.
Now, every other street food dish that I love
centres around lamb.
Excellent in dumplings, tossed through biang-biang
noodles style, almost like a Northern Chinese Mongolian.
From all over the world.
It's just super versatile.
I put my hand up. I don't eat it often enough.
- As the oil starts to drip down,
I can take my pastry brush, start to baste it.
- In a kebab shop, I've never seen them
get a pastry brush out.
- I have to say, I think you've done a great job
to get it that far. Cause that looks excellent.
- Well, no pressure but you've got 12 minutes
of active cooking time left.
- I've chopped up my potatoes into chip shapes.
They're going to go into a baking tray, with a fair bit
of oil, salt, into an oven, 225 degrees, 30 to 40 minutes.
- I am currently putting together my Greek style salad.
So that's peppers, cucumbers,
but the middle's taken out.
Tomatoes but the middle's kept in.
Finely sliced onion.
I've got oregano, olive oil,
red wine vinegar, good pinch of salt.
Gonna hold some feta back
to go over the top at the end. Make it look really nice.
- One of the things I really love about getting
a kebab is the choice of sauces that you get.
I'm going to make two sauces today.
One is a white, mint-y, dill-y, yogurt-y sauce.
- Dilly, dilly.
- Dilly, dilly sauce.
And the other is a chilli sauce. Classic.
- I'm at the point where I can stop time now.
Stop the timer.
- Sweet.
- Hang on. Stop, pause.
- Okay. All that I need to do now is griddle my lamb
and then save enough time to plate it all up
and remember to put my cucumber and my dill
through my tzatziki at the end.
- You have five and a half minutes
left on your clock to do that.
- Oh, I was hoping to have a little bit longer than that.
- I want really nice crispy bits.
So, the fact that they're sticking means
that I get some nice crispy bits at the end
- J, you are single-handedly revolutionising the UK kebab.
And what I see you've done there is
not only are you putting chips in the wrap,
he's putting mashed potato in there as well.
- Brits love a good bit of mash.
Perhaps with the exception of lamb neck,
which is quite a lean cut, gorgeous because of it.
Lamb is very forgiving when it comes to cooking,
in the sense that it's often got a lot of fat
or cooked on the bone, like a chop or a rack of ribs.
And therefore, getting the cooking levels is important,
but surprisingly easy because it has got that
extra bit of sort of margin for error,
especially with long, slow cooks.
- Next up, my chilli sauce.
It's pretty much exactly the same process.
Onion, garlic, chilies, chopped tomatoes,
oil, vinegar, sugar
and some big tomatoes,
all into a food processor. Whiz them up.
- Baz, could we have a time check for Jamie?
- That'll be two minutes now.
- He's not leaving himself much time to plate this kebab up.
(guitar strumming)
- That could use some more chilli.
- Right Jamie, you have a minute left.
Do you want to stop?
I can stop the time, whatever you want.
- James, you're being a Mike right now.
- Stop.
Think about it. - Jamie!
At what point do you go, stop? Right.
50 seconds.
- I genuinely don't know if I can slice that
and construct in 50 seconds.
- I believe in you.
(intense music)
- Cooking time.
No stress. Not being timed.
I've got my koftas.
They've been covered in veg oil
and now I'm going to griddle them in a pan.
It's going to get hot.
It's going to get smoky, but I'm looking
to get amazing char lines around those incredible koftas.
And a bit of a problem here.
I picked a griddle pan that's too big for my skewers.
So, I'm going to take the skewers out
and just griddle the koftas as is.
I'll wash the skewers
and then I'll put them back into the kebabs,
at the very end for plating.
Make them look nice.
(blowing)
- Active time.
Start, active time, stop!
- So, you've got 49 seconds there.
- Mike, you've got three minutes, 13 left.
- Let's finish off this tzatziki.
Cucumber into the delicious garlicky, yogurty mix.
I'm going to roughly chop up some dill,
put that through too.
- One minute, 20 left for Mike.
- 44 seconds, J. You ready?
- We will see how this bit goes.
- You're at 20 seconds.
I'd stop there.
J!
15 seconds.
(intense music)
- Done.
Do you want my 26 seconds?
- I'd love your 26 seconds.
- Then have them, because we are friends. (laughing)
- 10 seconds.
- 9
- 8
- 7
- 6
- 5
- Yeah, I don't need it. - 4
- 3
- 2
- 1
(buzzer)
- Double kebab.
Step back.
I mean, they look pretty good from here,
but I think we should get them into the sexies...
- They look good.
They smell good.
But they are also going to be devoured and judged
by the judgiest judge.
- That's the bit I'm dreading.
(upbeat music)
- These look amazing. Both of them.
They look awesome.
- Don't sound so genuine
because I don't know how to receive that.
We start here because I feel like that's going to get messy.
Cheers, cheers.
- Cheers.
(upbeat music)
It all tastes great. The tzatziki especially.
The lamb with the tzatziki
and the char lines that you've got on it.
Perfect.
I feel like the kofta and the Greek salad
maybe could have done with a little bit more seasoning.
- I actually can't argue with that, at all.
- Cheers.
- He wasn't holding back on flavours there.
And they've had time to do their thing.
- I love how there's so much going on
in that lamb kofta, but you can still taste the lamb.
- Good job man.
- I've got so much to do.
- Show us what you got.
- Cheers boys.
- Cheers.
- That is absolutely excellent.
- You got a little bit of chew with the steak
and then you've got all that mince holding it together.
And it all just kind of works together.
And chips in a kebab works.
I'm really tasting the mint,
like the dry mint in that white sauce, which is really good.
The hot sauce could probably be hotter,
but everything together tastes amazing.
- Completely different texture on the lamb.
The lamb leg steak and the mince.
The combination is really good.
- His spicy sauce, though is not that spicy,
it does bring a nice freshness to the kebab.
- It's got a tang to it.
- It's a very clean kebab. Just a weird thing to say.
- Kind of glad I'm not the one making
the final call this week.
- Oh, I don't know.
You've both hit the brief so well.
- They're both fresh.
They're both making really good use of lamb.
And they're both great kebabs in different ways.
- You're making me nervous.
- Ahhh.
- Okay. I think
I'm going to have to give it to Jamie,
purely for ambition.
I think, I think you pushed yourself hard
and they both taste so fantastic,
but I think I've got to give it to you on just your ideas.
- (clapping)
- Thank you. I'm happy with that.
We hope you enjoyed our ultimate lamb kebab battle.
We know what James thought,
but we'd love to know what you think.
Who would your winner have been?
Comment down below and let us know.
- And if you've tried any incredible lamb dishes
from where you're from, please send them to us on Twitter
or comment them down below so we can check them out.
- A big thank you to Try Lamb for the cooking challenge.
If you want to find out more about the Try Lamb campaign,
all the links are in the description box below.
- Should we make another kebab?
- I mean, not other then...
- Come back to my kebab shop.
- Why didn't you just say we should make another of yours?
- It was the winner, to be fair.
- [Narrator] Before you go,
just a quick shout to say thanks to all of you who are using
and sending us your thoughts on our Packs app.
We wanted to create a tool to help you boss
your mid-week meals, cut down on food waste
and reduce the cost of your weekly food shop.
And you are helping us do just that.
So thank you.
We want to make this as accessible as possible right now.
So, if you haven't tried it,
you can now for a full month, absolutely free.
The link is in the description box below.
And now for the bloopers.
- Look, don't make me out to be the bad guy.
I'm not the one- I can't even finish that sentence.
I'm so sorry.
Sorry. No. That was terrible.