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(upbeat music)
- So here we are, another Pick the Premium.
Today two of our normals, Jamie and Mike,
will both go head to head to see if they can
blind taste test the difference and pick
the premium, more expensive, of two similar items.
How does that sound Mike?
- That sounds great.
- It sounds like eating food,
and I'm always down for that.
- We're gonna add a competitive element to it.
The person who guesses the most correctly
gets to take all of the ingredients home with them.
- Oh, I like the sound of that.
- Aw, excellent.
- Are you ready for your first one?
- Hit me.
(upbeat music)
- [Ben] You've got A and B.
- Have you given me a really small loaf of bread?
(laughing)
- It's a cake.
- It is a cake.
I have baked you a very simple Victoria sponge mix,
and it is the vanilla that we're going to discuss.
One of these is made with a vanilla flavouring,
and one of them is made with a more premium vanilla extract.
- Lovely moist sponge.
- Sweet.
- I'm not getting hit in the face with vanilla.
- I'm getting a bit of vanilla.
- It's like that subtle undertone of vanilla flavour
that you get in cakes.
- Let me try the other one.
- Oh, hello.
Oh, I'm in Madagascar.
That has so much more vanilla to it.
- I was very careful to put an equal quantity of each
into each identically weighed out batter.
So there is no difference in the volume that was used.
Interesting that you're getting more vanilla there.
- There's an instant difference.
This one tastes more vanillary.
- It's almost fruity because of the vanilla.
- How often do you get to just have cake in both hands
and just chomp on it?
(laughing)
- I'm having such a great time.
- That is very much a vanilla cake,
whereas that is a sponge cake.
- But which is the premium?
- Oh well now I don't know.
- I've been on a journey,
but I'm gonna have to say that this one here
tastes far more vanilla and therefore I think that
that's the premium.
- B is the premium.
- You can take your blindfold off.
That's A and B in the right order.
You guessed correctly.
B is the premium.
It's made by basically macerating vanilla pods
from the orchid flower in alcohol.
And therefore you get more than just vanilla.
You get all the other fruitiness of the pod
that comes out, which is why extract, or vanilla bean
extract, has a lot more flavour.
Whereas the other one, although it is darker,
it has been coloured with a caramel colouring,
is just the vanillin, the chemical
that smells like vanilla.
- No I thought these would be the other way around.
I thought that would be, the dark one would be the extract.
- Very difficult, usually, to tell in baked goods
I think, in cookies and cakes.
Much easier to tell in a shake or an ice cream.
So A works out at £2.63 for 100 millilitres,
whereas the Nielson-Massey vanilla, proper vanilla bean
extract, is 11.75 per 100 mil.
Quick maths, what is that?
Four and a half times more expensive?
- On the basis that the flavour is so much stronger,
I think the premium one is probably worth the cash
because you can use less of it,
which means it will last longer.
But when you do want that kick of vanilla, it's there.
I would buy the more expensive one.
- That seems like a no-brainer.
I would spend more money getting the extract.
(upbeat music)
- Started with cake, can it get better?
- I think it might be about to.
- Oh yes.
- Ah, bread.
You can smell it instantly as well.
- It feels sourdoughy just in shape.
- [Ben] Interesting observation.
- Sourdough.
- They are both sourdough.
- Yes, I shouldn't be a normal.
- So one is a sourdough pre-sliced from a supermarket,
and one is a sourdough that we got from a deli
and have sliced ourselves.
- Crust on the outside, chewy on the inside.
Taste-wise that delicious mixture
of kind of sour, sweet, tangy.
- Move on to B. See what you think.
(upbeat music)
- It's a lot drier.
- Taste-wise, this tastes sour,
and it's really chewy and delicious.
This one tastes nice, but it is denser.
It tastes more like bread out of a packet,
not freshly cut, freshly baked.
- Which is the premium?
- I'm going to say A is the premium.
- I enjoy this one better.
I think this one should cost more.
Therefore, I'm going this one premium.
- Can you take your blindfold off?
- I mean, you're absolutely right.
A is more premium.
It was bought from a deli, and we sliced it ourself.
B is kind of a premium higher end loaf, pre-sliced,
you'd get from a supermarket.
It's got all of the characteristics that I would associate
with sourdough bread, and I wouldn't have thought twice.
And now you give me this and compare it.
And this one is more chewy.
It's more sour.
- I think no matter how well wrapped packaged is,
if you're pre-slicing bread it is going to go
a little bit stale quicker.
So another question is that when can you buy premium?
- That's the question, mate.
'Cause it entirely depends on how much each of these cost.
- [Ben] The supermarket sliced sourdough is £2.
And for the same size, weight loaf,
the deli one is £4.50.
So it is a little bit more than twice the price.
- Throughout lockdown, obviously one of the massive
hobbies that people took up was making their own sourdough.
And I saw so many people online say you know what,
I'm never gonna complain about paying four pounds
or five pounds for a good loaf of sourdough again.
'Cause they suddenly appreciated the amount of work
that went into making a really decent loaf.
The thought of spending four or five pounds
on a loaf of bread to me is still a bit alien.
But when it tastes that good and in comparison to that,
I would buy it.
(upbeat music)
(applause)
(upbeat music)
- [Ben] Spin round.
As always, A and B.
Two plates this time.
Just so you understand what you're eating,
it's a plate of penne pasta.
It's not the pasta we're judging,
it's what it's coated in.
- It smells tomatoey.
- What are you getting from A?
- A rich tomato sauce.
- This is gonna be hard.
- Try B.
Both penne, both cooked the same time, both
seasoned, and dressed in the same way
with the same amount of tomato sauce.
Oop nearly, try again.
- I mean it's a bit of texture there.
If it's tomato sauce, I'm gonna guess it's onion and garlic,
but I wouldn't say that there's massively strong flavours
come through there.
- They're both close.
They're both very close.
A is definitely deeper and richer in terms of tomato flavour
than B is.
- I feel like this one here tastes a little bit blander
than this one here.
I can taste herbs in both of them, like oregano or basil.
- Which one's the premium if you had to guess?
- I don't know.
But I'm just gonna have to say that this one here
is my choice for the premium.
- Based on flavour, I'd say A is premium.
- [Ben] Okay, take off your blindfold.
I'll give you a little dish of each.
- Instantly on looks, I'm starting to think
maybe I was wrong because this is actually
got a redder tinge.
It's deeper in colour.
- A definitely has bigger flecks of basil.
B feels like a tin of chopped tomatoes
with some Italian herbs stirred through it.
- Oh, I don't know now.
- After seeing it, I'm happy with my answer.
- You actually got that one wrong.
- Dammit.
- Damn.
- The premium, or the more expensive one, is B.
Both examples are made in Italy.
It's a higher percentage tomato pulp.
They're organic, it's got onions.
It's got less tomato puree.
Extra virgin olive oil, basil, sea salt.
That's it.
Whereas A has a lot of extra herbs, carrot, added sugar,
and a few other ingredients, including as a percentage,
twice as much tomato concentrate,
which I think probably makes it more tangy
and more-
- [Jamie] Punchy. - [Ben] Punchy.
- If I was making a tomato sauce at home,
I would put as few ingredients in it as B has.
- Price-wise A works out at 50 pence
per hundred grammes, whereas B, where that's your organic,
is £1.32 per hundred grammes.
So two and a half times more expensive.
- As with all of these things, the artisanal producers
will invariably make a better product,
and you'll pay more for that.
On the other side, you have to budget with what money
you have available, so it's a bit of give and take
in both aspects, isn't it?
In complete honesty, most times I would make
my own tomato sauce.
However, there are times when I come home late
from work, and I pop by a supermarket.
And that's when this information
will be really useful to me.
- Here's the thing, Ben, if I want a tomato sauce,
and I can't be bothered to make it myself,
I'm gonna buy A.
If I want a tomato sauce, and I want to know
what ingredients go into it and the quality
of those ingredients, I'm gonna make my own
'cause I can still make that cheaper than buying it.
(upbeat music)
- Okey-dockey, you have two sides of a scone,
slightly warmed
with clotted cream and jam.
It's the jam we're talking about.
You're gonna have to use your hands for this one,
might get it messy.
- As if the last one didn't get messy.
- Lovely and fruity, nice strawberry flavour,
quite jelly-like in terms of texture.
- I mean, very tasty, B.
- [Ben] Okay, oh.
(Ben snorts in laughter)
- Ebbers.
- Right, take two.
- That's a different league, Ebbers.
- Quite subtle.
- I've never said this about jam before,
but it's more complex.
Texture-wise, it's less jelly-like.
It also seems to have an alcoholic flair to it.
- Pick a premium.
- Option A is premium.
I got a bit of a chunk in there.
It tasted very much of strawberry.
- B's the premium.
- [Ben] Take off your blindfold.
- Did I suck it all off, or were you less generous
with the clotted cream?
- You went pretty heavy on the slurpage, yeah.
Bang on, you got a point for that.
- I'm annoyed I got that wrong.
Goes to show like visuals, as well, make a big difference.
- [Ben] B is Confiture Parisienne, jam reinvented.
Traditional revisited with audacious ingenuity,
artisanal attention to detail, and a splash of fashion.
- Sorry, have we moved into a pretentious ingredients video?
- It's grandmother's recipe for stewed strawberries
to keep all the gluttony of the strawberry heart
and the freshness of its juice.
The clove is reminiscent of the woody nodes
of the barely picked fruit for a tasting
more real than life.
(sighs)
- Clove is probably what I was feeling
with the alcohol.
Not burn, but the-
- [Ben] The numbing of an alcohol.
- The sensation.
- And that's probably very fair.
- Now I've got a chunk of that strawberry,
it does taste amazing.
- [Ben] A is supermarket,
pretty basic range, strawberry jam.
A works out at just 18 pence per 100 grammes.
- That's cheap.
- [Ben] B is five pounds 98 per hundred grammes.
- What?
- 33 times as expensive?
- There's a C.
- [Ben] To add in an extra element, I made our own.
So homemade jam I made yesterday with in-season
British strawberries and vanilla sugar.
That was literally it.
And that works out at 43 pence per hundred grammes.
So more than 10 times cheaper than the expensive
but about twice as expensive as the supermarket.
- Interesting.
- The whole fruits is nice.
- Now this sits in the middle in price,
and absolutely sits in the middle in terms
of the balance between the two.
- Which is your favourite?
- Serve me a scone with clotted cream and jam,
this jam, number A, I would've been very, very happy.
And I'd be happy anywhere that I had that.
B is definitely better.
- Where is it worth spending the money?
- It's worth spending the money far closer to A
than it is to B.
(upbeat music)
(cheering)
(upbeat music)
- Last one, two plates.
Both of them have steak.
- Oh, yes.
- [Ben] Both of them I've done nothing more
than season and sear in a tiny little drizzle
of oil and then left to rest.
And we've served them sort of medium rare-ish.
- I don't care if it's premium or not.
It's steak, and it's delicious.
It feels fatty, but actually when eating it, it's not chewy.
You're not chewing through the fat.
It does have a lovely crust on the outside of it.
It's well seasoned.
Well done, you.
A good steaky flavour, I'd say.
- Wow.
That is so nice.
Imagine if this one's the premium.
Oh my goodness.
- So these are slightly different in the sense
they're not identical products,
but though they are both rib eye.
One is high welfare, grass and forage fed beef steak
from the U.K., and one is from Japan, wagyu.
- Oh, right, wow.
- It feels fattier but in the best possible way
because that fat equals flavour,
and that's the best thing about a rib eye.
- It's almost 50% fat, 50% meat in a mouthful.
And it tastes amazing.
And it melts.
- The texture is just completely different.
- In what way?
- It's like melting butter in your mouth.
- Which do you think is the premium?
- B is my premium.
- I'd say that this is premium, and this is not.
But it's still delicious.
- Take your blindfold off.
I mean you've scoffed most of it, but-
- [Matt] Oh I have.
You are bang on.
- This is exceptional.
- Oh, look at that fat.
That steak is almost translucent.
- [Ben] We are looking at premium in terms of price.
They are actually both premium cuts of beef.
They're just very different and priced differently.
A, British rib eye, grass and forage fed, pretty high end
on a supermarket range, 25 pounds per kilo.
If you're looking at a 200 gramme steak,
you're looking at about a fiver.
B is black cattle from Japan.
It is wagyu, grade A5, shipped to the U.K.
and cut here and frozen.
This is 200 pounds a kilo,
which means your 200 gramme steak
is then about 40 quid at cost.
- I mean it absolutely tastes phenomenal.
- It's not comparable to an everyday steak.
- It is exceptional.
When am I going to and going to be able
to spend 40 pounds on just one portion
of protein for a meal?
- When we had the exceptional Wagu at Umu,
you think about the size a portion.
It was small cubes that you absolutely savour
rather than an eight ounce or 200 gramme steak.
So I think perhaps you eat it in a slightly different form.
- How did you have the nerve to cook it?
It feels almost too premium for me risk losing.
- That's a really fair comment because if you buy
in a restaurant, it'll cost you probably three times that.
Because there's gonna be a markup on it.
So you'd spend a lot more.
So trying it at home is a much more affordable way
of doing it.
- You need the confidence that you know what you're doing
to make the most of that.
- It tastes amazing.
It tastes a lot, lot, lot better than option A.
But option A was still delicious.
We're just very fortunate but wow.
I mean, if you can get an opportunity,
I would 100% say try it once.
'Cause it's worth the money,
but you're not gonna be buying it regularly
for steak night are you?
(upbeat music)
- All in all J, and you scored four out of five
when you were picking the premium.
Mike scored three.
- Ah.
- Yes.
- I'm actually really quite gutted about that
'cause I wanted that steak.
- Take out from today?
- There are certainly things that are worth paying
for the expertise in making them, like the sourdough,
even if it feels expensive.
- Even when you can tell something is a far better quality,
it still doesn't mean that it's worth spending
the money on it.
You're more likely to find a happy medium
with a less premium but better value for money product.
- But mostly, my take out is how disappointed I am
that I won't eat that wagyu steak again.
- You'll have to ask Jamie very nicely.
He might share.
I doubt it.
Over to you guys.
What did you think about those five,
and, more importantly, comment down below
with which ingredient we should compare next time.
- [Narrator] We've also built the Sorted Club
where you can get tonnes of foodie inspo using
the Packs midweek 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.
(upbeat music)
And now a blooper.
(beep)
- Right.
Open your mouth.
Are your fingers clean?
Wipe your fingers.
It's like feeding a child.