(pan sizzles)
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, fire, fire, fire.
(upbeat electronic music)
- [Mike] We are sorted, a group of mates
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- Ben, it's not worth it.
- [Mike] And cookbook challenges,
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Join our community, where everything we do starts with you.
(bluesy rock music)
- So here's the deal.
I'm stuck at home, I'm bored stiff,
and I'm in need of entertainment,
and there is nothing more entertaining,
you and I know this, than watching two normals
flap around a kitchen,
so I have set the boys a challenge,
Jamie and Mike head to head,
to create an instant ramen noodle dish,
and the winner will be crowned king of the noods.
(Jamie laughs)
- Well, it sounded good up until that last bit.
- Yeah, I was also not fond
of the, I'm bored stiff, so I'm calling the boys.
- Well, look, it's gonna be very simple,
but as always, plenty of jeopardy,
because the catch, you're both creating a dish
with instant ramen noodles.
Do with them as you please.
You only have one hour, and I will be judging it
based on creative use of noodles, tasty-looking dish,
but also entertainment value, the battle dance,
and how organised you keep your kitchen,
'cause I can actually see into your kitchen,
so the whole thing is being judged.
I'm like a fly on your kitchen wall.
I'm watching everything.
- I'm gonna swat you.
- Right, so you only have an hour,
and your time starts in three, two, one.
- Right.
Ah.
I've done a bit of a cheat.
- What?
- Have a look at these, soy-soaked eggs,
but to get them done, I had to start them last night.
- I hope you're bearing that in mind, Ebbers.
He's had an entire night's head start.
- I don't know, I think he's playing to my inner scout.
He's being prepared.
- Aw, this is already a nightmare.
- Right, I'm gonna be making a not-so-instant ramen
with overnight soy marinated eggs,
a rich chicken broth, mushrooms, bacon, and pork fillet.
So first things first,
I've gotta get on with my broth.
We're going in with two chicken stock cubes,
three star anise, some soy sauce, miso,
four peeled cloves of garlic,
sliced root ginger, mushrooms going in.
That needs to simmer away for 10 minutes,
and then I'm gonna take it off the heat
and let it infuse for 10 minutes.
- So you're still making your broth within the hour,
it's just not quite so instant
as the sachet that it comes with.
- No, but it is using a lot of fresh flavours,
and fresh ingredients, and I have control
over what they are, and the quantities of them.
I'm gonna use my sachet of seasoning,
but I might just use it in a different place,
like on my chips for my dinner.
- Jamie having chips for dinner
is just the most Jamie thing ever.
(Jamie laughs)
- So Mike, tell me and everyone at home,
what are you cooking?
- Well, obviously, Ebbers,
I'm making fried chicken and chips,
so I'm going to use the ramen noodles,
crush them, and then use them
to coat my chicken and then fry that,
but then I'm also going to use those noodles
to make actual fries.
- You have made, in your own kitchen, since lockdown,
filled pasta and cinnamon buns,
and in both occasions, you had a rolling pin.
Why are you now using a bottle of wine?
- That rolling pin is so heavy
that I will go through the kitchen work surface
if I smash my chicken.
I'm gonna leave that to marinate in soy sauce
and sriracha for as long as I possibly can
to take on loads of that flavour.
I'm gonna put that in the fridge.
- Wonderful.
You have had eight minutes.
- [Jamie] Right, whilst that simmers,
I can start on my bacon.
- So, like a fantastic tonkotsu broth,
which is obviously pork bones and deliciousness,
you are going porky here.
I guess that's very classic Jamie
in the same way that Mike is going chicken.
- Ebbers, I'm going double pork,
bacon and pork loin.
- You're going DP?
Oh my goodness.
- [Jamie] DP.
- [Ben] Smoked or unsmoked, Jamie?
- Is bacon really bacon if it's not smoked?
- I have to agree with that.
- Bacon is a curing process.
- Na, na, na, na.
- [Jamie] If your bacon's unsmoked, it's just hot ham.
(Ben and Mike laugh)
Right, Bacon, coming out the pan.
- [Ben] Good colour on the bacon, J.
(bluesy rock music)
All right, what's next, Mike?
- Okay, so I'm gonna get these instant noodles boiling.
I have peanut butter and an egg,
and that's going to go through my cooked noodles
once they have been drained and cooled down a little bit.
Then I'm going to fashion almost like a little tray
out of tin foil, and I'm going to spread them across that.
I've gone chunky because, again,
a bit like Jamie's smoked bacon comment,
is it really peanut butter if it hasn't got chunks in it?
- Big fan of the nuts?
(Mike laughs)
- [Mike] And then that's gonna go into the freezer.
- So naturally, the egg will kinda soak into those noodles,
and they will firm up to the point
that you can start to shape them,
but they kinda need chilling.
- All I could get ahold of
in the supermarket was a lean pork medallion,
so it's a lot thinner than a normal pork fillet,
so originally, I was gonna start this off in the pan
and then chuck it into the oven to cook through,
but actually, I think this is gonna be all right
just in the pan.
Pork going in.
("In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg)
- One of those things I love is that kind of soy glaze
you get on things, whether it's over fish.
We've done it with, like, char-grilled avocado before,
like a soy glaze, and I think
that's what Jamie's gonna get out of this
by adding the soy to the pan.
Good colour, Jay.
- Right, I'm going in with some soy.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
(Ben and Mike laugh)
Whoa.
- Nearly had a house fire.
Best if you keep the oil in the pan,
and if you do have an instant like that,
damp tea towel, don't blow it.
- [Jamie] That is done.
Thank goodness.
- Are you marking safety, Ebbers?
- Absolutely, that was horrific.
Boys, you are exactly halfway through your time.
You've had 30 minutes.
You have 30 minutes remaining.
- I have in here onion, ginger,
bashed lemongrass, green chilies.
It's now getting blended up into a paste.
(food processor whirs)
My spice paste is frying in a pan.
I've put a lot of oil in a pan,
and I'm starting to heat that up.
I don't have a thermometer.
- Do you have a wooden spoon?
- Yes.
- So you can test to see if your oil's hot enough
by dipping the handle of the wooden spoon in,
and if it sizzles around the wooden spoon,
then it's probably hot enough.
- Oh, great.
So I fried my paste off for two to three minutes,
and then I added in coconut milk, fish sauce,
and some brown sugar, and now,
I'm just gonna leave that slowly simmering
to reduce right down to the very end of the battle,
where I'm gonna hopefully have a delicious Thai sauce
that I'm able to coat my chicken and chips in.
Ebbers.
- [Ben] Yep?
- Where have you gone?
You've got one job,
and that's to sit down and watch something.
Ebbers are you eating noodles?
- Yeah, I got a bit.
- What?
- Well, you both made me noodle hungry,
and I had a sachet sitting here,
so I added some pak choi, couple of mushrooms,
little bit of fresh herbs.
I got two of my five a day.
Mine was an instant. - Double pork, nood hungry,
he's full of them today, isn't he?
- Instant ramen noodles are a real guilty pleasure.
What are you doing next?
- Now, I am making a pané station
of flour, beaten eggs, and crushed ramen noodles.
I am using the seasoning,
so the sachets are going into my flour
in the same way that, if I was doing southern fried chicken,
I'd put spices through the flour then.
- Boys, you're coming up to the last 15 minutes.
- Gotta strain my broth through a sieve
into another saucepan.
All right, I'm gonna give my broth a taste.
Oh, you know, it's good.
- Right, chicken time.
I've got my bashed out chicken breast.
One hand for the wet stuff,
one hand for the dry stuff.
- I love to hear all these tips that, over the years,
we've all talked about.
They're obviously sinking in.
- [Mike] They are.
- [Jamie] I am julienning my spring onion.
- That's a bold word to use
'cause I know exactly what a julienne should look like.
- Does it look like this Ebbers?
- And that's what's great about lockdown,
you've got more time on your hands
to practise your knife skills.
(Mike laughs)
- [Mike] Ebbers, how long we got?
- Sorry, I had a mouthful of noodle.
(Mike laughs)
10 minutes and two seconds.
- I think I'm gonna be all right.
- Yeah, that's 'cause you haven't done anything.
- Oh, shut your face.
- [Ben] How's it cutting, Mike?
- Yeah, it's okay, it's chilled up just enough.
I'm really excited.
- [Ben] I'm certainly intrigued
by the peanut butter element.
- They could've done
with a little bit longer, to be honest.
They are holding their shape,
and obviously, as they crisp up,
I think they'll be good.
- [Jamie] Right, spring onions have gone into iced water.
- [Ben] Makes them go nice and curly,
but I'm impressed you're doing the little things.
- You know me, Ebbers.
- It's never about the little things with you.
What are you talking about?
(Jamie laughs)
Okay, chips are a nice colour.
They're coming out now.
- Oh.
- Ooh.
- Hello. - They're ramen fries.
- So I think I'm gonna slice into my pork,
and you can see, it's lovely and tender,
but it's definitely cooked all the way through.
- Okay, a reminder,
you have five and a half minutes remaining.
You're gonna have to get that chicken in, Mike.
- Five minutes is gonna take me up to the wire.
My coconut-y sauce has reduced right down.
I've just thrown some Thai basil into that
'cause I am gonna top it with some fresh basil as well,
but I just wanted some of that flavour in.
- I can only imagine the Huttlestorm
that exists just left of camera angle.
- Noods going in.
- For a man who was kind of ready about 20 minutes ago,
J, you didn't half leave those noodles
'til the last second.
- Wait, it didn't come up to the boil quick enough.
- [Ben] You've got great-looking noods.
- Thanks, mate.
- 90 seconds remaining.
Never easy to ladle noodles.
You kinda want one of those spaghetti spoons.
- Oh, wait, I've got one of them.
- I'm putting Thai seven spice sprinkled
over the top of my fries.
- Oh, god, oh no, right.
I forgot about my eggs.
Ebbers, look at my yolk.
- Nice.
30 seconds.
- [Mike] Need to spoon over some of my sauce.
- 10, nine, eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two, one.
(buzzer buzzes)
- Whoa, how'd you do, J?
- Um.
- How you feeling?
- Presentation, yay.
- Same, yay.
(fire crackles)
- Boys, well, if nothing else,
that filled an hour of my day,
and I have chuckled, so thank you,
but I also hope there's two lovely dishes in front of you.
So, Mike.
- What we have here is fried chicken and chips.
The chicken has been marinated
in soy and sriracha before being paned
in crushed instant ramen noodles and deep fried,
and the chicken is accompanied
by ramen fries, so peanut butter
and egg-bound ramen noodles
that have been cooked, chilled,
sliced into fry shapes, and fried.
Topped with a reduced coconut broth,
chilli flakes, and Thai basil.
- [Jamie] Mate, that looks amazing.
- It's definitely a plate of you, isn't it?
Got the peanut butter,
it's got the kinda southeast Asian flavours.
It used the ramen instant noodles
in a slightly different way than you might think,
in a dry form that was then fried,
and with the fries themselves.
- When I make a Thai-based curry,
or a coconut broth, I don't reduce it,
but that is so coconut-y that, the next time
I have time on my hands, I'm reducing that down
for ages because it makes such a difference.
You can still see some of the texture
from the paste of the sauce coming through,
and you get such an intense hit of flavour because of that.
- I'm really intrigued by the noodle fries.
I don't know if I've ever had anything like that before.
- There's not really a huge cross section there.
- But there's a difference
between the crispy outside and the middle.
- Absolutely.
- [Ben] J, what have you got?
- I've got a not-so-instant ramen.
So I've got a broth, and then I've topped that
with soy-marinated pork, bacon,
mushrooms, and soy-marinated eggs,
and of course, the instant ramen noodles.
Hello, I'm a bowl of ramen, and I'm delicious.
- Aw, that does look good.
Take the eggs away, because obviously, they are cheating,
but that's a pretty decent bowl.
- What I really like about that is,
that is far, far better
than instant ramen noodles would usually give you.
- It looks and sounds like a really nice middle ground
between instant ramen noodles
and a bone broth is hours and hours,
but I also like the fact
that you've got two types of pork in there,
the smokiness, the soy, and the richness of the yolk,
plus the julienne of your spring onions.
All around, decent effort.
My bowl of instant ramen noodley things
with a few veg was good as a guilty pleasure.
I think both of you have gone way above and beyond that.
Jamie, I think your dish looked better.
Mike, much more creative use of the noodles.
You both tried to clean as you go,
although I imagine there's a hell of a lot more Huttlestorm
there is spaff all over the kitchen.
- Aw, that is such an unfair assumption.
- My winner today, kind of the noods, is Mike.
- Oh, I was not expecting that.
- [Ben] A really genious use of instant noodles
in something that's less obvious.
- I also don't think I'm that disappointed
to not be Ebbers' king of the noods.
- Yeah, as he was saying it,
I sort of thought, hm, should've thought
about how hard I tried to winning this one.
(Jamie laughs)
- Right, that's my opinion done.
Over to you guys.
Who do you think should've won?
Give them a score out of 10 for both Mike and Jamie,
and tell us why you would give them that score.
Comment down below.
- [Mike] We've also built the Sorted Club,
where you can get tonnes of foodie inspo
using the Packs mid-week meal app,
discover and share restaurant recommendations
using the Eat app,
listen and contribute to our "Feast Your Ears" podcast,
and send us ideas for new cookbooks
you'll receive throughout the year.
Check it all out by heading to sorted.club.
And now a blooper.
♪ Spaff's in control ♪
♪ Doing sexies ♪
♪ Pulling focus the wrong way ♪
♪ But it doesn't matter, hey ♪
♪ Let's start again ♪
- [Jamie] Now how do you do side to side?
Looks nice, doesn't it?
Yeah, it does, pow.
Oh, what's that?
Oh, it's a sexy ramen.
Yeah, it is, pow.