(egg cracking)
(pan sizzling)
- Hello and welcome to Sorted Food.
Today we are channeling our inner normal home cook
and celebrating the dishes that just make us feel all
comforting and nostalgic.
- Now from grilled cheese to baked potatoes,
every normal has their go to basic recipe.
Some would say guilty pleasures, but personally,
there's nothing to feel guilty about.
- Today we're talking baked beans on toast
and we're challenging our chef to make it gourmet,
and by gourmet, we mean Ebbers chef it up.
- That's my job.
That's what I'm here to do.
And I'm genuinely quite excited for this.
(dramatic music)
- First of all, let's recap what makes
baked beans on toast so iconic.
Think of it as a meal in a can
slathered onto buttered toast.
- [Jamie] Ah, it's saucy, it's sweet.
It has all the textures.
- [Mike] Not only a midnight snack,
but also a morning staple, it's-
- (beep) brilliant.
(boys laughing)
- Technically what we're saying is it can't be beaten.
- But, Ebbers, can you beat it?
Beans on toast, make it gourmet.
- Okay, this is gonna be about layering up flavor on flavor,
excellent ingredients,
and proper technique. - [Mike] What is that?
- What are you doing already? - Starts by peeling
an espresso martini.
- So we've made an excellent stock
from pork and chicken bones,
and I'm using the fat from the stock to begin this dish.
Then we're gonna start frying off smoked lardons.
The first of our pork.
- Now smoked bacon and baked beans,
the ultimate baked beans has sausages in it.
- Well look at that. - Yeah.
- There is a tin.
Baked beans with sausages.
- For me it's up there with my somewhat top three dishes
of all time.
Of all the things I've had around the world.
- What?
- Of all the things you've had around the world?
- Genuinely, genuinely.
You don't need, I know you won't agree with this,
but you don't need flavor twenty-four-seven.
This is like a, this is the sorbet.
This kinda resets things a little bit.
- This is the sorbet (laughing).
- So my logic is, let's make one of, I think,
my favorite bean dishes.
So we're going to the south of France
and doing a Toulouse style Cassoulet.
- I knew it, I knew you were gonna screw this up.
(Mike laughing)
Baked beans on toast is not Cassoulet on toast.
- Cassoulet is one of those wonderful dishes
that's named after the pot it's cooked in.
Like a tajine, a cassoulet is made in a casserole.
Casserole, we would call it a casserole in the UK.
- Oh that's what you would say.
Thanks for the translation.
- Smoked bacon lardons getting a head-start.
Then all the veg, onion, celery, carrot,
and we're gonna soften all of those vegetables.
- The thing about beans on toast is,
is it just the three of us who love this dish
and find it all nostalgic and comforting?
No, because we asked you on Twitter,
and lots of people had lots of thoughts
about beans on toast.
A lot positive.
Some, not so much.
- Yeah, like Sigma said that well it's the perfect
mid-week pick me up and you can pimp it up
with some cheese on top.
It's so versatile.
- Randall said "Beans on toast?
Not for me.
I'm a Minnesotan, our comfort food is tater tot hotdish."
Which also sounds fantastic to me.
- I think it was the first thing I learned to cook,
and probably the last thing I cooked as well
'cause I made it last night.
(boys chuckling)
(upbeat music)
- There's an excellent quote by Julia Child, right,
she said Cassoulet is a beast of a bean dish
that's perfect for peasants, but it's also the ambrosia
for the gastronorme because although this is
a really hearty peasant based dish,
you can get really quite chefy with it.
- Is he calling us peasant?
- I think he (indistinct) peasants.
It's like not being as cool as it?
- Now there are so many different versions of cassoulet
all over France, and every region has their own.
I don't know how traditional tomato is
to the very very first original ones,
but I figured given that tomato is such a big ingredient
in our baked beans, its got to go in.
- Absolutely.
- Tomato, garlic, herbs, that's rosemary, thyme, and bay
all going in.
Dried beans, super affordable.
You've got more control if you soak them and cook them,
because essentially you're cooking all of the flavor
from our stock into the beans
rather than using tinned beans
that are already cooked for you.
- Pint of beans please mate.
- So these need soaking over night in cold water,
'cause what they do is rehydrate, swell,
and it gives you more control to cook,
but also you can cook them quicker.
And that turns into this.
And you can see the difference.
- [Mike] Wow, cool.
- Lots of debate about which beans for beans on toast.
I think the tinned ones are haricot beans.
- Yeah.
- These are cannellini beans.
- [Mike] Oh wow.
- [Ben] Stock.
- [Barry] Just some.
(upbeat music)
- With all those layers of flavor in there,
bring it up to a boil, stick it into an oven,
150 degrees Celsius for about an hour and a half.
- So what sausages are you putting into
this beans on toast, Ben?
- Famous French chef once said a Cassoulet is not a recipe,
it's a way of neighboring villages to argue.
Because every village has their own kind of version
depending on what you have and what's local.
I've gone for duck legs, pigs' cheeks,
and we'll have a bit of sausage too,
but these have been cured.
So yesterday I took salt, black peppercorns, garlic,
thyme, rosemary and blended it all up in a spice grinder
to give you a really fragrant, delicious curing salt,
and then scattered it and rubbed it into all of this.
And we can rub off the excess, but then basically this meat
is gonna go into our Cassoulet once those beans
have the hour and a half head-start.
So duck is pretty common in Cassoulet.
Often cuts of pork, depending on where you are,
somewhere like Carcassonne they would put mutton in.
Often different sausages, regional sausages.
You could even have partridge and goose
depending on where you're from.
- Let's have a look at this sausage oh!
- Oh flipping A!
- [Jamie] That's not a banger.
- That's a turnip.
- Again every region has their own sausage.
You can use a Toulouse sausage if you're sorta doing
one of the very traditional Cassoulet,
kinda where it all originated in the Languedoc region.
However, this is more kind of mid-mountainous Comte region
of France, and they literally hang these in a barn
and then light conifer and juniper saw dust
underneath in the barn, and the whole barn fills with smoke.
And it's a cold smoke, so it's not cooked,
it's a cold smoked sausage.
After an hour and a half of those beans
gently bubbling in the oven, the pigs' cheeks,
the duck legs, and the sausage go in.
Bring it back up to a boil and then back in the oven
for another two and a half hours.
(upbeat music)
- We're 18 hours in.
- And I feel like I'm getting a lot of trouble
from the side.
I'm just trying to make it gourmet.
And sometimes you gotta celebrate in the region
and wonderful pairings, so while we're in
the South of France, in the Languedoc,
how 'bout a glass of wine?
- What do you pair your beans and toast with?
- Oh, well a beautiful pinot noir.
- Oh yeah (laughing)?
- The Languedoc region was literally turned
all their vineyards over into making wines
for the French army.
So while we're talking Cassoulet, which was to defend
the city during the siege, I thought it would also be
a nice nod to something that will really play
to the pork, the fattiness, the (indistinct) of beans.
Gourmet, are we getting close to gourmet?
- [Jamie] Oh that is very nice.
- Tastes like red wine.
(boys laughing)
(upbeat music)
- In the same way that I didn't smoke my own sausage,
I bought bread.
(boys laughing)
- Found someone else for that, did you?
- That would be very impressive.
(Barry and Jamie laughing)
- But it's worth pointing out we're going sourdough,
and if you've got a sourdough culture
you absolutely can do it.
It's live, it's bubbling, it's kind of what gives
this dish a wonderful crunch.
- What are you gonna do with that?
- Toss it in an olive oil, salt, pepper,
and bake them off so we've got croutons.
- On top of the?
- Salad.
- Oh salad.
- Not this.
(upbeat music)
- We're only gonna need one tray for today,
but the rest of this we'll scoop out, blend up
with garlic, herbs, oil, toast off in the oven,
and then store it in an air tight container.
And you sprinkle it on with salads, and soups,
and risottos, and pasta dishes, and Cassoulets,
and anything you like that just needs a bit of oomph.
(upbeat music)
So now we need to toast it,
and we all know it has to be buttered toast.
(boys gasping)
- Oh, chef!
(upbeat music)
- That also goes into the oven to toast off,
so not too high.
Same temperature as our Cassoulet,
so it crisps up and becomes toasty.
- Now what?
(Barry laughing)
- What's the title of this we're making?
- Beans on toast. - Baked beans on toast.
- Plural beans, so one beans isn't enough.
How 'bout more beans.
Got some runner beans.
What I'm gonna do is a really citrusy, umami
kind of power house of a dressing around some
bean and fennel slaw.
- Coleslaw out of the pot, onto the baked beans.
The mayonnaisey, yogurty like sauce-
- Ah yeah, with the tomato sauce.
- Starts to mix with the tomato sauce.
- Yeah, 100% with you.
- Yes.
- And if you think about slow cooked bean dishes
from all over the world, so Brazil,
beans with all sorts of bits of pork.
(speaking foreign language), they put the orange on top,
'cause it helps with digestion.
If you think about across India after a meal
they will often chew on almost candied fennel seeds
because it aids digestion.
I figured I would do that with beans and fennel
in a slaw with a nice dressing.
So parsley tossed in a dressing that is
the zest of a lemon, juice of a lemon, some mustard,
some chopped anchovies, pinch of pepper, olive oil,
whisked up, toss it all together
and you've got that wonderful power house of flavor
that cuts through the Anise seed, and the beans,
and the fresh herbs.
A salad on the side.
And on top of that, a few of our croutons.
(upbeat music)
I'm just toasting the inside, 'cause a sourdough
has got that wonderful chew to it,
which means it's not really toasted as much as the outside.
And if you cooked your Cassoulet right,
you can break it up with a spoon.
If you wanna cheat this mid-week,
if you ever open a tin of beans, whack the whole lot in,
including the bean juice.
We use it quite a lot in Meal Packs.
It's just a reaLly good way of getting all of that
bean juice into whatever you're cooking,
so that you can do an Italian, Tuscan bean stew
with a tin of buttered beans in very little time.
So the final thing is to use all of our beet root tops,
so whatever greens you've got in season,
we're gonna chop them up and stir it into this,
so you get almost like a final wilt
of green spinach wonderfulness
and it means that nothing goes to waste.
That is a gourmet beans on toast.
(boys clapping)
In toast.
- In 28 hours.
(Barry and Jamie laughing)
(calm music)
(upbeat music)
- Cheers.
(bread crunching)
- Wow, wow, wow.
That is so rich and smokey, but do you know what?
If you shut your eyes and bite into it,
you get baked beans in there somewhere.
- You do get baked beans.
You get the sweetness from baked beans,
which is important.
- That has got the perfect amount of stodge.
- Let's have a bit of this.
- When you finally think you've had too much meat,
go for a bit of salad.
It gives you room to go back.
- [Mike] Oh wow, the salad is amazing.
- It's really difficult putting the two side by side
as a comparison, 'cause they do different jobs,
but if we're taking the original beans and sausage on toast
and making it gourmet, does that work?
- That's the ultimate comfort food.
- 100%.
- It gives me every single feeling
that the original beans on toast gives me, so yes.
- I didn't think it could be done,
but that is better than beans on toast (laughing).
- Early doors I was worried you'd gone too far off piece,
but to return to this, it tastes outstanding.
- I'm gonna be honest, I'm not gonna make that at home.
I haven't got 48 hours to make beans on toast.
I do have bread and I do have tins.
And I will be adding some delicious meats
to my beans on toast to get a little bit closer to that.
- Well there are three very happy peasants
in the kitchen right now.
But it's over to you guys.
Comment down below, let us know what basic dish
should we let our chef loose on next.
Comment below with the dish name, and then say Ebbers,
make it gourmet!
(Barry laughing)
- I demand it.
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(upbeat jazz music)
And now for the blooper.
(beeping)
♪ Ebbers, chef it up, chef it up. ♪
♪ Ebbers chef it up. ♪
♪ Ebbers chef it up, chef it up. ♪
♪ Ebbers chef it up. ♪
- Good, good.
(boys laughing)
- If anybody's in need of a wedding band.