Hey, welcome to Sorted.
We're a bunch of mates in London
looking for exceptional things in the food world
that will help make our and your lives
that little bit better.
Between stitching each other up and all the innuendoes.
Now be warned, we have two chefs
but we give them limited airtime
and we make sure all of our ideas
start with a suggestion from you.
- Hello, welcome to fridgecam, I'm Ben and this is Mike.
- And I'm not feeling very well
and I need some soup but I need three different types
of soups at different difficulties, types and times.
- In front of us are three different hot and sour soups.
Now they all have similar flavor profiles
but each one takes a little bit
longer to make than the last.
- The question is, can we tell the difference
when we compare them at the end.
First though, we're gonna show you how to make each of them.
- This is an instant soup in 10 minutes.
- I know what you're thinking.
- Yeah its gonna take 10 minutes to prep it,
but its gonna be instant when you cook it.
- For your lunch.
Here's what were using.
Some kaffir lime leaves, some very tiny bird's eye chillies,
lemongrass, chicken stock cube and dried mushrooms.
- Garlic powder, ginger powder and some brown sugar.
That's the end innit?
- And to make it all happen, we're using this.
- A big bottom but he's little in the top.
We're gonna start with our instant powder
and that's about getting all this stuff
into this and blending it up into a powder.
Get your nose in there.
So we're using the spice grinder,
so you get really, really fine.
And we'll come back to that later on.
- That smells like flavor.
Whilst we've got the machine out
we can prep our fresh ingredients for our soup.
We're gonna thinly slice some mushrooms
and some spring onion and we're gonna grate
some carrot and some daikon radish.
And all we need to do is swap out our slicing tool
for our coarse grating tool.
And that is everything prepped for our soup
and now all we need to do is construct it
in our bowl or in our flask.
We're then gonna stick
a little bit of coconut milk in there
and bring that together and then
add in our precooked prawns.
- And then all you need to do
is pour over some boiling water, job done.
A package of flavor that you could never
imagine getting instantly from anything else.
Give it a stir up, if you're feeling fancy
- I dropped it.
(oohing)
- Speedy.
- But this, is our vegan tofu coconut soup.
- I know what you're thinking,
we're going vegan but can we make it creamy and satisfying?
Yes, we can.
- And here's what we're gonna use.
- A chilli and lemongrass paste.
- We're gonna make a broth using vegetable stock
and coconut milk flavoured with coriander and lime leaves.
- And we're gonna finish it all off with tomatoes,
mushrooms, red onion and my personal favourite, tofu.
- There's no need to be sarcastic about tofu.
- I'm not being sarcastic
I'm working out how to sell it - Tofu can be delicious
- back at the table, it'll be great.
And the whole thing's gonna be brought together
with this turbo unit.
To start our paste I'm gonna peel and roughly chop
some shallots, lemongrass and chuck it into our chopper
with chillies and galangal.
- Nice.
- Thanks.
Coconut oil.
- Yep.
- Goes in the pan.
- Spoon paste into coconut?
- Oui, chef.
Fry the paste in the coconut oil until its fragrant
and then add the palm sugar.
- And don't worry if you don't have galangal,
just use ginger and if you don't have palm sugar
just use brown sugar.
Its almost the same.
Not quite as good, but almost as good.
- That's true, that's all true.
- Now its time to take our paste and turn it into a broth
with our vegetable stock,
our coconut milk and kaffir lime leaves.
Don't worry that you've got big bits of kaffir lime leaf
'cos once its simmered away for 10 minutes
we're gonna blitz it up in the pan.
- And it's gonna go nice and bright
and green and delicious and creamy
- Ah yeah.
- Shall we cut some veg up, and some tofu.
- Yes.
- You can half the mushrooms but if you get
little button mushrooms like this, there's no need.
Stick 'em straight in.
- Good tip.
- Thanks man.
How about you cut some tofu?
- I can cut some tofu.
- Go for it.
Once that soup has simmered for 10 minutes
we're gonna add in the fresh coriander, then blitz it.
Do you want to do the honors?
- You mean chuck everything in,
leave it to simmer for five minutes
and then finish by seasoning it
with a little bit of lime and soy sauce?
- That's what I mean by honors, yes.
- Then yes, yes I do.
Oh oh!
- Nice!
- However, this one is the ultimate one, made from scratch.
- Ooh.
- More grabby, more grabby that one.
- Not allowed back here now.
- We have had two delicious soups
but this is the chef's time to go all out.
- So we're gonna make our own stock
with some shell on prawns,
our own chili paste with similar flavors
to the other guys but added dried shrimp,
shrimp paste and fish sauce for umami.
- And to finish off we're gonna add some fresh
whole flavorings with some mushrooms and cherry tomatoes.
- Plus, to get the best paste possible, we're using this.
- Do you have a theme tune?
- No, I feel like we should bolster it up, have you got one?
- I don't have a theme tune.
- These are awesome, all we need to do
is take the heads and shells off
and stick them in a pan with some peanut oil.
And you'll notice they will change
from grey to a wonderful pink.
Why you doing that James?
- I don't wanna eat the poo.
- Take out the little black line down the back of the prawn.
Intestinal tract, what he said.
- Also it looks really pretty
when they're butterflied and they kinda of like,
they curl up, yeah. - They curl more.
With the prawn heads and shells fried off
I'm adding in about a liter and a half
of cold water, heating to a simmer
and letting it bubble away for about 45 minutes.
- We are going a little bit more traditional with this soup
but already we're kind of going of piste a little bit
because usually you would just boil the prawns
but its so delicious when you fry them off in peanut oil.
We are going to make a spice paste
which is gonna just add loads of depth of flavor,
a little bit of heat and lots of umami.
- Shallot, garlic, dried chilies, tamarind, palm sugar,
dried shrimps, shrimp paste, oil and fish sauce.
A lot of ingredients, they balance themselves out,
they're delicious and you can get
them in the link down below.
Kapow, that is more than you need but it freezes
really nicely in ice cube trays for next time.
Once the stock has simmered we're gonna strain it off
through a sieve, get rid of all the shells
and the heads and what is left goes back into a clean pan.
- And I'm gonna chop up some aromats,
put them straight into the stock.
- Fancy word for lemongrass, ginger and chilli.
- What you shouldn't do is slice your chilli really finely
'cos you don't want, you wanna be able to see the chilli
in there, not get it in your mouth.
- Once the aromats have infused the stock
for about 5 minutes we're gonna add in oyster mushrooms,
bring it up to a simmer then add
cherry tomatoes and our butterflied prawns.
Bring it up to a simmer and remove it from the heat.
Although we've layered up lots of flavors in that stock
from the aromats, from the mushrooms,
from the cherry tomatoes, the prawn stock
this is where the seasoning comes in.
- After the spice paste we're gonna add palm sugar,
fish sauce and lime juice to balance it all out.
- Ah!
- Right, let's eat some soup.
- We are loaded with spoons.
- Get it.
- Get a prawn.
- Cheers.
- Oh.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- You instantly get, from what is quite
- Flavour, yep.
- An instant soup, the fragrance of kaffir lime
and lemongrass, that is amazing.
- And a little bit of heat.
- Yeah.
- And just enough seasoning, right
there's nothing else but chicken stock
and dried mushrooms in that, is there, and it's perfect.
- What I like about that is that
the carrot and the radish went in raw.
So although it's softened slightly
you still get really nice crunch from it.
But, coming to this.
- I'm gonna.
- I'm gonna put it out there already,
this is the best looking.
- We're not comparing yet.
- I don't care.
- Cheers.
- Well cut weren't they.
- It's hotter.
- Whoa, yeah it is.
- But I feel like it can take it
because of the creaminess of the coconut milk
and those red onions, much the same as the gratedness
going on here, just cooked but still with crunch
and the sweetness of red onion comes through.
- The great thing about tofu is,
although it doesn't have much flavor by itself
as soon as you add flavor to it,
it soaks it all up like a sponge.
Boys, you've got a lot to live up to.
- Well, in that case, have a dip.
- I almost don't wanna share this one.
- Oh, I want a cherry tomato.
- If you get a bird's eye chili, don't eat it.
- Cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers.
- That has got elements of those two
but with like prawn bisque going on as well.
The prawn stock.
- I think you make the prawn stock
and then you just bring it to life at the end.
- Yep.
- I can't get enough of those tomatoes,
that little sweet pop, with the spice, yes.
- The flavor in your chef-y one, washes over you.
It doesn't like punch you in the face,
like the second one does but it washes
over you and it's beautiful.
Picking a favorite here is really tricky.
I love the convenience of the instant, 10 minute one
but I might have to lay my cards on the table
and say that my favorite soup on the table has tofu in it.
- Whoa.
- Convert.
For me, yes the stock takes a bit longer
but the umami from the shrimp paste
and the fish sauce makes that stand out for me.
- I'm with Ebbers, I love the tofu one
but that's an experience.
- I'm a little bit biased 'cos that is actually my favourite
soup in the whole world and I've gotta go with that one.
I can't do anything else, I think that's fantastic
for what it is, that's got a load of flavour, packs a punch
but that is just like something else, worth the time.
- Three different soups, we're still going
back to try more of each but tell us
in the comments down below which would be your favourite,
which would you most like to try?
- Did you like that?
We liked it, if you liked it, like it.
- It was so good he's nearly better.
(Mike clears his throat)
We'll see you next Wednesday, next Sunday
at 4PM - At 4PM.
- As we mentioned, Sorted is just run
by a group of friends so if you like
what we're doing then they're loads of ways
that you can support us and get more involved.
Everything you need to know is linked below.