(egg taps)
(egg cracks)
(egg sizzles)
- Hello and welcome back to Sorted Food.
Now today is gonna be super awesome
because we have the brains behind one of London's best
award-winning Sri-Lankan restaurants Hoppers.
Karan welcome.
- Thank you so much.
I'm so excited to be here.
Finally behind the scenes,
I've been watching you guys for years and years,
on YouTube learning how to make a curry.
And now I'm here on the other side. (everyone laughs)
- You're supposed to be the expert!
- This is our expert!
- This is where I leave see you.
(everyone laughs)
- Do you know what though?
- Okay I'll come back.
- Curry itself is a huge learning curve
cause there are loads of different methods and techniques
to get the most out of ingredients and spices.
And I think a lotta people make common mistakes at home.
So today we're gonna put our three common mistakes,
Jamie, Barry and Mike to the test
to make a dish and- - That's not what my mum said.
- And Karan we're gonna eke out
loads of useful tips and tricks-
- Sure, sure. - From yourself.
And so we can all learn together.
- We've got a bunch of ingredients there.
I'd let you firstly figure out what they are
and then figure out how you'd use them.
If you were to combine everything you see in front of you,
in a pot to create a dish.
- Brown onion.
- Yeah okay thank you.
- Red onion.
- [Mike] Good to have you here.
- Curry leaf.
- Or Kaffir lime.
- Oh I see what's happened here.
(laughs)
- That's come straight from the restaurant.
- [Karan] That's part of one of those,
you know the kits we sent you guys a while ago,
which I think you seem to like.
- I love that. - Whoa.
- Boys you've got familiar
with the ingredients in front of you.
They are all weighed out for you.
All we want you to do is put them together
into one delicious dish.
It's Karan's recipe what is it?
- This is a Sri Lankan chicken curry,
but we're gonna be used using Jaffna curry powder.
So it's not necessarily a northern curry.
You've got different curries from every region
it's just one we really like
and it's gonna be a nice spicy potent curry.
- You do have 20 minutes to get it underway
and bubbling away.
And your time starts in three, two, one go!
- Okay.
- Slice some onions.
- Sure.
- Yes.
Slice or dice?
- Slice. - Dice.
- [Mike] Well what are we
thinking first? - [Barry] Half and half.
- Where are we going first?
What's step one?
- Surly the base.
- Let's make a curry paste.
Toast the spices.
Grind the spices.
Add the spices into onion, garlic and ginger,
form it into a paste
and then fry it off.
- Are we gonna put any flavor on the chicken?
- Yeah.
- So what about-
- We need to marinate the chicken.
- Oh!
- In coconut milk and the ground spices.
- [Mike] No.
- [Jamie] Right no.
- [Mike] No that's silly idea. (Barry laughs)
- [Jamie] Why would that be stupid?
- I just think.
- [Jamie] Oh what do you think?
(laughs)
- [Ben] The word curry. - [Karan] Yeah?
- [Ben] Where does it come from, what does it mean?
- It's a bit interesting.
I spent a lot of time trying to understand that.
And of all the reading I've done apparently there's a,
it's a Tamil word called Kari.
So almost phonetically
that's why we call it Cash and Kari.
K-A-R-I
It's a word from Tamil Nadu
and I think historically it was used to,
I mean it's still used to
denote anything wet with spices in it.
and I think was almost. - Almost.
- Yeah exactly nut the interesting thing is back in India,
you don't have anything like a curry powder.
You've got various spice mixes,
like curry masala's and sambar powders down south
and various different spice mixes,
but there's nothing like a curry powder.
So this is interesting I grew up in India
and it was only when I first got to know
my Sri Lankan friends and went to Sri Lanka that
I actually found the dishes being referred to as
a red curry or a white curry,
a bit like Thailand and also specific curry powders,
which are blends of various spices.
- We're not grinding these spices.
- We're not. - Is that what you decided?
- I'm just having a think.
I don't wanna grind the spices up.
These are gonna be whole
and we'll pull them out before we serve it.
- [Mike] Right fine we'll fry 'em off.
- Yeah!'
(snaps)
- Merry Christmas.
- We're gonna go half of the fresh stuff into the paste.
And then the other half to bubble and simmer
after all of our stuff is gone.
(upbeat music)
- You're half way.
- [Barry] Paste.
- Slice this into rings.
But if we're gonna use it for garnish later.
- Rings?
- Yeah like onion rings.
Oh no slices.
(laughs) Rings.
- [Barry] No you have to do it in oil!
I told you that!
- Why did you- - (indistinct)
- Why not?
- So now he's toasted the oil in the spices.
- [Barry] This is humiliating.
- Right I'm now just gonna pull my oily spices
into this paste.
- [Barry] Might I stock?
- [Mike] Stock going in.
green stuff for flavor.
- Pandan and leaves.
- So look I think Jay got it right when he said
the chicken's about medium rare.
But that's fine we're gonna cook it out.
And while that gently bubbles
we'll move on to the next stage
and Karan will show you how it shoulda been done.
(strings plucking)
(jazzy music)
Same ingredients in front of you.
Where would you start?
- Back in Sri Lanka there are two ways of cooking curries.
There's the cold method,
which is literally
take the right amount of all the ingredients
put into a earthenware pot
and very often just do it over wood fire,
which is how I've seen people cook for me in the villages.
So there's no sort of browning, frying anything like that.
Which is practically in some ways
what you guys ended up doing with the
full and tomato stock reaching over
going in at the same time.
- But it's not is it?
- Him reach over and all that kind of stuff right?
What I'll talk to you about is something that
we've developed for the restaurants,
the way I cook at home,
which might be different from what the way others.
So there's no right and wrong method
but ours is more than sort of layering a curry.
What I normally put in marinade
and obviously a little bit of seasoning.
So a pinch of salt you don't wanna
salt for the entire recipe,
which is something I think you guys might've forgotten
to do completely. - Did you not put salt?
When you put the-
- It just creates that whole osmosis.
It brings the moisture outside.
Thanks.
I had already seasoned that.
- Damn.
(everyone laughs)
- I have put the Jaffna curry powder,
just a large pinch of it just to marinate.
There's a little bit of turmeric.
And that's,
it goes back to the whole Ayurvedic science of cooking.
Because turmeric is meant to be a great antibacterial.
Let's rack on coconut oil a generous amount in there.
Just mince that up as finely as you can.
There was debate about these.
Curry leaves.
You were close.
pandan very good pandan leaf there.
Very common ingredient in a lot of East Asian cooking.
So Malaysian curry.
And I find it interesting how it's used a lot
along with lemon grass another very common ingredient
in Sri Lankan food.
Add in our whole spices which is really important,
they kind of simmer they really release all their aromatics,
all those lovely essential oils into the fat,
because they're not gonna be doing that in the water.
Next stage is gonna be onion.
I'm going at a medium high heat.
I like to slice my onions.
You can finally chop them.
You could roughly chop them
because at the end of the day they're gonna
you want them to break down in the curry.
What I don't tend to do too much of
is blitz them into a paste
because I find the water separates a lot
and it's much harder then to cook it.
I've always found browning of the onions,
like super brown crispy takes a long, long time
is more sort of North Indian.
Whereas with a lot of Sir Lankan food,
all you need to do is soften
or take them to a light brown stage.
- So I've always been told
that onion will take longer to cook down than garlic.
And you're more likely to burn garlic
if you put that in first.
- So I think there,
it comes down to sugar content and garlic is
notoriously sweet.
People don't realize this
but a garlic has tons and tons of sugar in it.
Ginger actually can go in anytime.
But I usually just,
I think ginger and garlic in my head just work together.
They're like a marriage.
The key with tomatoes is,
how often have you had the curry,
especially those curries that call for a lot of tomato
we just get the skin at the end.
Or even Italian sauces where they've not been cooked well,
you've got that skin at the end,
you get that sort of half broken down tomato
with that bit of onion,
you need to respect every single ingredient
and cook it for the right amount of time.
At this stage I'm gonna chuck my tomato in.
You wanna just dump it in?
- Alright swapsies
- We're doin' some real cookin'.
- Look the tomatoes are broken down now can you see that?
I mean you still see skins,
but the test for me is by the end of it
when you eat that curry,
you don't want to see lumps in chunks and little skin.
Again another really common stage in a lot of Indian recipes
or Sri Lankan recipes is cooked till the oil separates.
And that is exactly that.
When the onions and when the tomatoes have cooked well,
you kinda see the oil coming to the sides.
Obviously you have to
use the right amount of oil in the first place
for that to happen.
So at this stage,
I'm now gonna add the dried spices.
Jaffna curry powder there's gonna be a good amount of that.
These things
could have gone in with the whole spices at the beginning,
I just find that they're delicate.
They're green.
You don't wanna lose all that spice
by frying it for a long time
so you add it this stage instead.
This stage chicken goes in.
And you don't need to go sort of crispy stir fry chicken,
it's just literally a little bit of browning.
So you see that the tomatoes here
they've completely broken down
you got little bits of skin that'll just disappear
and melt away into the curry.
The onions softened up completely.
You wanna go in with your liquid,
which is water or stock in this case
stock again just intensifies things.
And finally once that's reduced to the consistency you want
add in your coconut milk.
Chilies in at this stage if you want them.
Also a bit of curry leave there's almost like your garnish.
I'm just gonna chuck that whole thing.
That's it guys that's me.
- Nice good job.
Well let's have a little clear down
and maybe taste them side by side
and see how those little tips made a difference.
(upbeat rock music)
It's not often you get the chance to do this side by side
so you can try your one,
try Karan's one.
See what you think.
Visually you can see a slight difference but have a taste.
- Cheers boys.
- We're only having mine.
- Mm hmm.
- Oh that's delicious.
- What do you think good?
- So good.
- [Karan] I'm sure yours is good.
- Tell you what it's not a short flavor.
- It's tasty. - There's a lot of flavor
in that.
A nice bit of heat but not too spicy.
- As well as being able to see the paste,
you can taste the paste.
You can it's very texture-y.
It's not smooth. - No.
- Well I think that comes from the onions.
And actually you guys would have had a pandan curry.
Most of what you did was not far off.
It was just the onions.
I think blitzing the onions with the ginger and garlic.
- [Ben] So try the second one.
- Oh look how smooth that sauce is.
So creamy!
- Same ingredients.
A fraction of the amount of equipment.
And about the same time.
Our one has more layers going on in terms of
there are more textures,
textured layers.
(everyone laughs)
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- But yours has less texture layers
but far more flavor layers.
- That is outstanding.
- Understanding the oil and the whole spice
and then the onion then the fragrance then the dried spice
learning all that that is the bit that I think
is stand out difference there.
- That tastes like a professional made it.
And that tastes a bit like a home cook made it.
But it's exactly the same quantities
of exactly the same ingredients.
Big mistakes in mind what have we learned?
- If you're making Sri Lankan curry,
don't worry about making a paste.
Don't blend it up
because that's gonna make the onions more watery.
- Cook the whole spices out early on because they're hearty,
they'll cook for ages,
release more flavor.
And when adding the dry spices,
add it in later when the oil starts to split.
So they've got something to cling onto.
- Fresh pandan fresh curry leaves.
That's a revelation for me.
- But if you can't get them fresh freeze 'em.
- Yep.
Yep. - So you use freshly frozen
as opposed to dried.
- Making sure tomatoes breakdown.
So you're not left with big skinny bits.
- That's remarkable same tomato,
same ripeness, same size,
yours had more cooking and still hasn't cooked down.
- You guys have criticized your curry a lot.
I personally think is not a bad curry at all.
You had some really good thought process behind it.
And you came up with still a very tasty curry.
I'm gonna show you what you can do with that.
If you want to take it to the next level.
And then obviously this curry
we can eat with some bread on the side.
- Alright great.
- Take your curry
and show you how to make it taste good.
(laughs)
- [Ben] How to save it
but this is also great for leftovers
- How are we turning that into something delicious?
- More delicious.
- Thanks.
- It is delicious honestly it is.
Look one of my absolute favorite dishes
is a dish called kottu roti.
I love the way they're nodding.
What is it?
- So roti means bread.
- Yeah. - And kottu...
Barry I done one do you want?
- Everyone's gotten kottu roti.
- No I've eaten it but I couldn't tell you exactly
what it translates to.
- Made with the choppers. - Kottu kottu
Yeah absolutely that's where you've had it.
So it kottu kottu it just means chopped up.
And it's basically a chopped up roti.
- Noise it makes it's the noise it makes.
Boom boom boom boom.
- They'll also have these (indistinct) paddles
that you're using on this massive flattop,
(chopping)
chucking all these ingredients to this chop chop chop chop.
(chopping) And you can hear that sound from miles away
when you're in Sri Lanka.
Usually in crowded markets,
very, very popular late night meal.
I've brought along with me some roti dough that I've made
and that's
it's all those ingredients in there.
If you could drop up an onion for me,
shred that cabbage.
Cut this up, grate some carrot and then we start sort of
frying it all together.
In the meantime,
I can do the roti and we'll stretch it out.
Because these are the smaller ones
I'm just gonna do it by hand.
It's harder to stretch these or throw as we say,
but you want it to be fairly thin because remember
you're gonna chop it.
It's gonna be like noodles.
So that roti's gone in on a dry non-stick pan
on medium heat just little drizzle of oil.
Now at the restaurant,
because we've got this whole lot of roti to do.
We've got one flat top
we can't wait for one to cook at a time.
So we'd actually put a second one on top of this right now.
So put some oil,
put the second one in,
flip it over put the third one on
flip it over until you have a stack that high
and they don't stick to each other.
(tapping) You want this in
just an even hand here and there.
(roti slaps)
Then slap it like that.
(roti slaps)
Flour, little drizzle of oil,
just sort of coil it up into this lovely, lovely burrito.
And that goes underneath.
Press that down.
Let it sit again you want it to rest.
(roti slaps)
- Brilliant. - Yes.
- Brilliant!
(roti slaps)
I think that's good.
Those roti's we made roll them up and then.
Just thin strips.
- Too much bread is thrown away
and that's what I love about dishes that
upcycle it into something that
doesn't save it but is arguably better.
- Onions go into that.
White cabbage wanna put that into this stage.
Carrot as well.
Beaten egg, salt, and pepper.
Roti goes in.
I'm gonna show you what happens.
Go little by little,
add a little bit of that sauce.
- [Mike] So you're using our curry here because-
- I'm using your curry.
- Our curry it could be the paste.
- And actually your curry would be perfect
because it's quite chunky and it's got texture,
which you want!
(spatulas chopping)
So what he's doing is chopping
and stir frying at the same time.
Guess the song.
(spatulas chopping)
- "Riverdance."
(laughing)
- There we go all done.
(exciting funk music)
- [Everyone] Cheers.
- Oh!
- Yeah.
- Absolutely hits a spot
for that end of the night food doesn't it?
- And it's that texture of noodles right?
It's almost like eating pad thai noodles
or whole pho noodles.
- But with a still slight crunch of those veg nice.
- I'm gonna eat some of this as well.
Cause I partially helped make this.
Wow.
- Karan thank you so much for coming out.
It's not just the normal that have learned today.
We've all learned so much so thank you.
- Absolutely loved it.
It's so nice to be behind the set,
see how small this place is
compared to big you look on camera.
(everyone laughs)
And still the manage to churn out
all that amazing content all the time.
- So where can our audience find out
a little bit more about you?
- There's obviously Hoppers, London is the restaurant
and you can find us on Instagram at @hopperslondon.
We lost our Facebook page.
Personally I go under @karancooks
so I do all the non-Hopper stuff once in a while,
a bit of fun like this.
And obviously if you want to order the curry powders,
whole range of other Sri Lankan products,
Hoppers' Cash and Kari our brand new retail platform,
which we launched last year.
- And I don't know about you,
but I think it's almost time
for another Chef Skills Challenge
to see if what you three have learned today.
You can actually put into practice.
If you like the idea of that comment down below.
- I'm definitely commenting on that one.
(Jamie laughs)
- Grab number after this one.
(beeps)
- Like when you wrestle.
- Pardon?
- When you're oiled up and you wrestle you don't stick.
Same thing I t's not gonna stick cause of the oil.
- We rolling?