- A few days ago I FaceTimed the boys, completely unawares,
and forced them to show me inside their fridges.
We've gathered some of those ingredients,
put them into grocery bags,
and now we have ourselves a social experiment.
Okay boys, as you can see, we've assigned you each one bag,
which is some of the contents of somebody else's fridge.
- Barry.
- Jamie.
- (chuckling) Mike.
- Shall we play a game of show and tell?
- Right, what have you done to me?
Okay, so we've got some scrags of guacamole,
Hummus, Capri Sun, Babybel.
Do you have children?
I'm not shocked at the moment. I'm not worried.
(all laughing)
Oh, I put about thumb in that.
You've inadvertently screwed me,
by actually having quite good ingredients.
I was gonna fall back on the fact
that you'd give nothing to play with.
We've got pumpkin, chicken, Capri Sun,
obviously Spafford salad cream.
I think there's quite a lot of stuff to work with here.
- Yeah. - I'm worried.
- Jamie, let's open Barry's fridge.
- I've just looked in there. For (beep) sake, Barry.
- I don't wanna come forward.
(all laughing)
- It's fair to say,
we caught Barry very much at the end of a week.
- Half a double cream, crumble, butter.
- Do you not lid?
- Huh? - Do you not lid, bro?
- No. Yeah, it's not efficient, is it?
- It's got a skin on it.
(Barry laughing)
I don't know where to go.
It's all great, but does it go together?
- Straight away, top of the bag. I'm a happy man.
I've got some meats to work with
and some, wait a minute, they're all lean meats.
2%, pre-cooked, lighter cheese.
- I wasn't born with these eight pack abs.
(all laughing)
- I'm happy with what's in front of me.
I can do something with this.
- Okay, imagine you've just got in from work.
You've got 30 minutes on the clock.
Cook up something tasty and inspired from these leftovers.
And your time starts in three, two, one, go.
- I think this might be impossible.
For me, I'm trying to work out what cuisine to go with.
What's my hero ingredient?
- Note to create a dish
that best makes use of those ingredients.
If you throw everything at it and it's rubbish,
that's also a waste.
Ja' begins by committing with celery.
Mike's going in for the pumpkin.
Baz is starting with?
- [Barry] Bacon.
- Be interesting to see what that pumpkin tastes like,
'cause so many pumpkins in the UK and across the world,
are grown for carving and not for flavour.
And yet, in the UK alone,
22 million pumpkins are thrown away every Halloween.
- Well Evers, luckily I am coming to this Pumpkin's rescue.
- Excellent.
- I don't know if I am
- To be honest, if you combine
the whole of the food team here that's sort of together,
we've got decades of experience in professional kitchens
and what actually that means
is that we generally don't get ourselves into these places
where we have ingredients left over without a home,
or we flip it and use that as a creative challenge
to find a home for them.
- Okay, here's the thought.
I've got loads of veg.
I've got celery, peppers, green chilli,
I've got some broccoli,
but I can get that all in and frying off
with some tomato paste and some spices.
I'll get some chopped tomatoes.
I'm thinking a shakshouka style dish.
I've got eggs that I can then do on top afterwards.
- Pumpkin seeds everywhere.
- Bit of fresh parsley.
And I can do some double cream
with some harissa paste as a bit of a splodge afterwards.
- Wow, that sounds actually quite good.
- I'm kind of making a turkey mince ball ramen thing.
I'm kind of making it up as I go along.
I'm cooking all my protein to start off with,
crisp up some bacon, making some turkey balls
with some togarashi.
Ball 'em up, fry 'em off in the bacon fat, get that done.
And then I started prepping my veg
and building my ramen of sorts.
I do need some ramen though.
- You're coming up to having 10 minutes of your time gone.
How's that make you feel? (Jamie laughing)
- [Mike] Holy mo', really?
- Yeah.
- Quite concerned.
- We just want simple quick cooks here.
- We have an issue.
We have no ramen so we have to use dried pasta instead.
Sorry, Italy.
- So we had some mushrooms
that looked like they were on the turn
in the next next couple of days.
I've got that half a pumpkin, chicken, half the quinoa.
Yes, that solves the food waste problem
but it doesn't solve the flavour
and what dish I'm making problem.
So I'm roasting off some pumpkin there
and I think what I'm gonna do is,
once that's started to cook through,
make sort of like a pumpkin, chilli, mushroom
and cabbage sauteed hash together.
and then figure out how to get some chicken in that.
I want chilli, garlic as my main flavours.
We've got some ginger paste as well.
Let's see what happens, Evers.
- If you are enjoying this,
there are some small things you can do
that make a big difference to us.
Like the video, subscribe if you aren't,
click the notification bell and select all.
Thanks.
So the reality here is that the average couple in the UK
wastes 30 pounds of food a month,
because they don't necessarily have a plan
when they go shopping and they don't know what to cook.
That equates to 143 kilogrammes of food waste across a year
and a lot of that could be saved.
So there are things we can do
to think about how to use those up.
- I was gonna add some spices to make kind of shakshouka
but what I've realised, is Barry's got jerk paste.
Why not make like a jerk-shouka?
- What have we learned recently
about the food of the Caribbean and around there?
- Spicy.
- Sometimes balanced out with?
- I can't remember, Evers.
- I'm trying to look at the ingredients
you've got in front of you.
- Yam? Grapes?
- A little bit of sometimes the fruit
that makes its way into that. - A little bit of sweetness.
Yeah
- It's inspired by the Spanish and Portuguese influence,
sort of dried fruits and things like that.
- It's time for the turkey ball ramen thing.
Had no ramen, so now we're using spaghetti,
so it's turning into a more of a turkey ball,
spaghetti dish, with some flavours from around the world.
I now don't know what cuisine I'm making,
I'm just going for it.
Then the balls are going into the pan, the bacon fat.
- Layering flavour of bacon and turkey. I like it.
Now wash down, get rid of all your raw meat from the board
and bowls, and crack on.
- Michael's had some flavoured garlic butter in his fridge,
so I've gotta use that 'cause it's just easy flavour.
- Mike's going for volume here.
I think he's cooking for an army.
- I am.
I'm cooking for Jamie's family, mate.
These are Spafford portions from Spafford's fridge.
- Whereas Jamie's gone for all the flavour in his pan.
And he's added anchovy.
- Umami.
- Fair play.
- Browned off, now into the oven to cook through.
Don't think you can have Turkey pink, so...
Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry,
- Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Barry, Barry, Barry, Barry.
Barry. - Yeah, it's been doing that.
I know.
There are pumpkin seeds everywhere.
- That sounds like my house.
- You have had half your time,
you have 14 minutes remaining.
(rhythmic upbeat music)
It's lots of lovely smells.
- [Jamie] So I'm slicing this nice and thin
so that it cooks relatively quickly,
'cause I think we only have about 13 minutes left
- Correct.
- Turkey's cooking.
I'm just going to prep some of these spring onions.
- I like that Jamie has gone for a one pan approach
for his midweek meal.
Mike is on his third pan.
- If I had two big pans, I think I'd be all right.
But I've got baby, middle and papa bear pan.
- Daddy bear, mummy bear and Goldilocks.
- So now I'm prepping my veg.
I'm gonna fry these off in with the Turkey.
I'm also gonna slice up some red onion as well.
- You have 10 minutes remaining.
- Apple crumble.
Barry, I don't know where to use the apple crumble.
Enjoy it, mate. I made that.
- What, and then put it in this lovely silver tray?
- Well that didn't happen, I did make the...
It's a homemade apple crumble
from the apples that have fallen from the neighbor's tree.
- Barry's was homemade. That one's not.
- Oh really?
- Eight minutes.
Another top tip is to try not to just cook by recipe.
If you go and buy all the ingredients for one recipe,
the chances are, once you cook that recipe
you'll have a little bit of this left
and a little bit of that left from your fresh ingredients.
Instead, plan to share ingredients
across a number of recipes.
- Now that that's cooked out,
I'm gonna get a squidge of garlic just to add some flavour
and a bit of ginger as well.
Barry, I need to use your hob.
Thank you, mate. Love you. - Go for it.
- I think I'm making Turkey meatball pasta,
with Japanese flavours.
- What's Japanese about the flavours?
- I'm using a ramen broth. (Jamie laughing)
That's pretty much it. (laughs)
I'm using a ramen broth and togarashi in my balls.
The rest is then just, yeah, a mix really.
- [Evers] Jamie's making cheese on toast.
- No, Evers, making cheesy garlic bread.
- You got six minutes,
is that gonna cook out the raw garlic?
- Under a grill, sure.
Hello, mate. Which one's the grill?
Is it that one?
- I have no time to help.
Ah, I'm really worried about that pumpkin.
- Okay, think about plating up midweek style.
Top tip, if you're rushed for time,
for something like a shakshouka,
those eggs could have been submerged
in hot water for a few minutes,
just to bring them up to a warmer temperature
to give you more chance
in your last four minutes of cooking.
- Cook! (Jamie laughing)
- [Mike] There we go, that's the colour I wanted.
- [Jamie] No!
- Are you okay, Spaff'?
- You have to press play!
- You idiot.
- This is the worst oven in the world!
- I think you've done this multiple times.
- I have.
- You've not learn from your errors.
One minute.
Three, two, one.
(Buzzer blaring)
And step away from your midweek meal delights.
Right, let's get these into the sexys.
(jazzy uplifting music)
Number one, you have all managed to cook two portions,
not necessarily in front of us
but two portions of food from those bags.
Thumbs up.
- I'm taking the wins where they come.
(all laughing)
- Now let's see what they taste like.
And where perhaps, we could have been a little bit smarter.
They might be perfect but I've seen the whole process,
so I know they're not.
- Let's start eating.
- Right, chicken.
- [Jamie] Mike, what did you cook?
- Quinoa, mushroom, pumpkin. Yeah, we'll come to those.
Here's what I like about the dish.
You've taken seasonal veg.
You've not done a huge amount to them
to celebrate them in their sort of raw form,
some of the pumpkin a little bit raw,
without masking it with lots of other flavours.
I like the fact that you tried to use the pumpkin seeds,
which is a great addition for crunch.
Unfortunately, they need taking out
and actually like roasting so they're crunchy.
What you're left with is something that's almost inedible.
As a pumpkin seed, they damage the dish
rather than add to it.
But the rest of the veg feels very autumnal.
- Wait, Evers, does this change your mind?
(Jamie laughing)
- Almost certainly not.
- I almost forgot. It's served with a beverage.
- But do you know what?
If that had been reduced down around the pumpkin
and kind of gone triple spicy...
- Okay, move on. (all laughing)
- Right, Baz, so we'll dig in on this one.
- What was this, Baz?
- Turkey meatballs with spaghetti.
Right, you know what?
I'm actually really happy with everything I did,
in terms of like technique-wise.
I did everything right, but there was no idea at the end.
I don't think I cooked anything badly.
- Super lean turkey mince is tricky to cook perfectly,
but you have got the added fat, the bacon.
The end result as a dish, is pretty okay.
This is where I think you went wrong.
You found one ingredient, the ramen stock,
and then you'd made up your mind
and you cook by recipe,
despite the fact you didn't have
half of the ingredients you needed.
You fixated on one thing
and then sacrificed and made do where you went along.
- Mm-hmm.
- And also, you go like one degree off,
and then five minutes later you go another degree off.
And where you thought you were on the straight line,
suddenly you're over there somewhere.
- I was telling everybody going, "What can I use up?"
Not, "What's gonna make an amazing dish?"
- And also, the things we've discussed before,
perhaps thinking about the bacon
and sharing it across multiple recipes.
Instead, you cooked it all, but you didn't use it all.
So there is an element of waste there.
And to be honest with you, that's the kind of thinking
that goes into Sidekick, our app.
It's all the logic that goes on inside a chef's head,
so that you can cook a bit smarter across a week,
share ingredients across various dishes,
so you reduce food waste and you save money in the process.
- And right now, you can get a whole year of Sidekick
for just 29.99.
That's the same as the average cost
of food wasted in one month.
No brainer, right?
Be quick though, as the offer ends very soon.
- Too much bacon is never a problem though.
- So, shall we look at the third one?
(Jamie chuckling)
- [Barry] I'm excited by this.
- [Mike] Is that a croque madame shakshouka?
- Jerk-shouka.
- Oh my god. (Jamie laughing)
- Jerk-shouka with eggs, cream, parsley and garlic bread.
- Cheesy garlic bread.
- I'm loving that jerk mayonnaise stuff.
- Cream
- Yeah, cream. - Jerk. That sounds worse.
- Jerking cream.
- That's why I said that.
I didn't wanna say that. (all laughing)
- I think that dish was an excellent creation
given the bag of ingredients you had,
which was probably the biggest challenge
out of the three of you.
I like the fact that you've taken a fairly classic dish
we're familiar with, and given it a twist
with one paste that we've got.
Typically, we might think yoghourt or sour cream
in this instance, but you didn't have it.
You went for double cream. I think all of that is great.
I was surprised to see you open a brand new pack of pitta
to use two, leaving four behind,
when you had other things like potatoes on the table.
- Aw, Jamie. - But actually,
not a bad shout, because with the cheese
you were able to use up and the garlic paste.
I just think that garlic needed cooking out a bit more.
- It's good for dipping though, isn't it?
- As you were going through the process,
if you think about planning ahead,
you could have had that grill a lot hotter and preheated
so you get some colour on the bread.
But as an idea, - Yeah.
- that is super strong.
Three very different approaches
to cooking with the same challenge.
I think through technique, there's a standout bottom place.
- Whoa. Oh, wow! - Oh, whoa! Wow, wow!
- Wow!
- And that's that one.
Which leads me with these two fighting for first place.
This is a fairly obvious choice
and we've done dishes like it 101 times
and yet you still twisted it into a completely new place.
This was not an obvious place 'cause it's weird,
but it kind of works,
except some of the execution wasn't great.
- Yeah.
- So today my winner is Jamie.
- Yes! - Yes, my bag won!
- With the... (laughs) (all laughing)
- How!?
- It was a rubbish set of ingredients to work with,
he pulled it off.
He took my vote, but over to you guys.
What's your vote? Comment down below.