Hey, welcome to Sorted.
We're a bunch of mates in London looking
for the little things in food that will help make our
and your lives a little bit better.
And amongst constantly ripping each other, some of us
are chefs.
The rest of us, well, we're normal.
But every video we make always starts with a suggestion
from you guys.
[MUSIC - JADED, "PANCAKE"]
(SINGING) --but I take the cake.
I'm gooey in the middle, baby let me bake.
Hello, my name is Ben, and this is Mike.
Today we recreate our very first recipe from 2010,
and then try and make a version even better
to see what we've learned in that time.
Hey guys.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So today, we're going to be doing beef and ale stew.
[LAUGHTER]
If you followed Sorted for any length of time,
you might know that we do recipe labs.
And it's basically where we test every single recipe that
leaves this building, whether it's going to books, or videos,
or anywhere else.
And today, we thought it might be
fun to go back to our very first recipe that we ever published,
which was a beef and ale stew.
There was nothing wrong with it at the time.
It just got bad with age.
Like the rest of us.
Recreate it as it was in that recipe,
but then also see if we could experiment and improve upon it.
Because hopefully we've learned some things
in the last eight years.
Look at that, look at that plating.
Affordable one pot cooking, 2 pound--
[LAUGHTER]
2 pound 90 a portion.
Just saying, 2 pound 90 a portion.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So Jay and I, attacking the classic recipe, the very first
one we did.
A mirepoix, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, all chopped up.
They go into pan with just a bit of oil.
Me and Barry are doing our new stew.
And we've all put our heads together
and thought of some things that we've learned over the years
to almost improve the recipe that we've done before.
I have sweated the onions, and garlic, and celery
for quite a long time--
it's probably cut a little bit smaller than the other guys--
and then cooked out some tomato puree.
Step three of our recipe, we need to add our tomato puree
and flower.
So we've got to allow the veg to brown.
And we're going to scrape up the brown bits from the bottom
of the pan as we go.
You know why?
Because flavor.
In Ebbrell's excitement, he's put the garlic in already,
whereas the recipe actually states
to put the garlic in later in the cooking process.
So to make sure this is a fair comparison,
I'm just removing the garlic.
All right, I've got as much of the garlic out
as I possibly can.
Can you wait for me next time, and I'll tell you?
Now that we have a head start, the garlic can go in.
No, what are you doing?
We are literally four steps away from putting the garlic in.
What's that?
That's rosemary.
The recipe is just a guideline, have a bit of fun.
See what comes out the other end.
Now the garlic goes in.
Step three of our recipe, we need to add our tomato puree
and flower.
Try putting it into the mug, hot water, let them steep.
This is something we've discovered, delicious beer.
Use the most delicious beer you can find, am I right?
Am I right?
You are right.
It's going in.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Beef shin all the time.
We're using the same kind of beef,
because beef shin is the perfect thing to slow cook.
But we're also adding some bone marrow
for an extra beefy element.
We also fried the beef off before we put it in the stew,
whereas those guys kind of put it in the stew
after they've added all the liquid.
That's just going to add an extra level of flavor,
because you're getting that caramelization on the beef.
Porcini mushrooms in something that is slow cooked just
adds another level of flavor.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Dumplings.
The single best thing about any stew--
apart from the beef--
is the dumplings.
Equal ratio of self-raising flour,
suet, generous pinch of salt and pepper.
Couple tablespoons of horseradish.
And just enough cold water to bind it to the dough.
And that's because we're copying the recipe
as per eight years ago.
Stew has been there for a couple of hours,
which obviously gives you time to play with the spreadsheet.
So I've costed this particular dish with today's prices.
And the way we've done it, it worked out
3 pound 58 a portion.
Give them a bit of space to expand.
A couple of options, lid on to steam it, or I prefer lid off,
so you get a little bit of a crusty top on your dumpling.
We're going to make spinach gnocchi.
Gnocchi is technically a dumpling.
So what you're actually saying is,
we could make a beef stew with dim sum
and that would still be a dumpling?
Technically.
Technically, yeah.
Why not?
Do you want to do that?
Or like, a calzone?
Let's put a calzone in there--
Ravioli?
--because that's like pizza dumpling.
And this is why they're not normally involved
in the recipe labs.
Although, it's very creative of you, Barry.
Gnocchi is really simple, almost as simple as making
simple dumplings.
It's boiled potatoes, get them as dry as possible.
You know, mash them out when they're nice and cold.
And let's get some flour over, and mold it into a gnocchi.
But what we're doing, is we're adding a little bit
horseradish, and some spinach blitzed into it,
so it goes vibrant green as well.
We're blanching the spinach, which
is just cooking it in boiling water for a very short time.
And then we're refreshing it in cold water.
That keeps a very vibrant color, and cooking it
makes it blitz much better.
So it will kind of be a lot greener when we actually
put it in the gnocchi.
[FOOD PROCESSOR]
Once we've got the right sort of volumes,
we're going to mix that with our spinach and our horseradish.
We should have some lovely lime green gnocchi.
It's a balance between cooking them through so they're not
doughy in the middle.
Yeah.
And we don't want them too small, do we?
Are we going to cook them in the broth?
Yeah.
Are we gonna-- yeah.
Yeah.
This is going back in the oven.
Give it 15--
10 minutes?
10 to 15 minutes.
To 15-ish.
Usually, like fresh gnocchi would cook
in two minutes, or something.
But it's not in boiling water.
And we're not looking for, necessarily,
that gnocchi texture, right?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Oh, these are much nicer bowls than what
we had eight years ago.
When have you ever known a beef stew take two people 10 minutes
to plater?
I mean literally, isn't the whole point--
Guys, this--
--throw it in a pan, cook it, let it do it's thing?
This is not a battle.
This is a friendly thing.
We're all in this together.
It's ready.
Ours has won--
Come on, you've got to do it.
--on time and effort--
You've got to do it.
--and price.
Yeah, got to do it.
Go on, I'm watching.
'Cause that is beef and ale stew, sorted.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Let's turn back time and go back to ninety-- what was it?
2010.
1994.
I just want to make sure that Ben completely
stuck to the original recipe.
He did put some herbs in right at the last minute.
I feel like any dumpling that's made with suet is naughty.
Horseradish dumplings are amazing.
Beef is falling apart, tender.
That is-- you can't knock that.
That is a dish I've had, what feels like hundreds of times.
Yeah.
And it's a flipping good version of it.
And it's only things that matter--
money, time, and washing up.
Yeah, that was all done in one pot.
The thing is, for how easy that was,
it's packed full of flavor.
Considering the amount of effort you went to,
is it noticeably better?
Yeah.
And it's not a crazy amount of extra effort.
What you've tried to get, and we'll see if it works,
is almost more of the umami.
Good?
I'm a little bit upset I haven't got a spoon.
Because that sauce is a little bit thinner,
but it feels richer and more stick to your ribs,
and more incredible, even though it's
slightly thinner in viscosity.
That is a world away from our stew.
There is nothing wrong with our stew whatsoever.
But that just has so much more to it.
The beef is a completely different texture.
How have you done that?
It's the same beef.
I know, but--
Maybe moving on eight years or so from a student,
maybe as a student we wouldn't have had porcini mushrooms
in our cupboard.
Maybe we wouldn't have had bone marrow.
Not that it's expensive, but we just
weren't thinking those things.
But to add them in there doesn't add any complexity
to the process, but adds a huge amount of depth to the flavor.
It's at this point in our cooking journey
where it gets the most fun.
And I wouldn't recommend to anybody out there,
go back to one of our recipes, one of your own recipes,
re-cook it, but find a couple of twists to see,
to kind of put you on the edge and test it.
See how far you can take it, and have your own recipe lab.
That's where cooking gets proper fun.
If you like that, then like the video.
And also, why don't comment down below with a recipe
from an old school Sorted video that we can recreate next.
One thing I didn't like about that video
was how we looked eight years ago.
Yeah.
Fresh faced, ready to take on the world.
And now we're just haggard.
If you follow us on social media,
you would have seen so many people submitting
their versions of our new recipes from our new cookbook,
Can't Be Asked to Cook.
And [INAUDIBLE],, there are only a few copies left of the book.
I know.
And do you know what is most amazing about it?
What?
All of the photos that you guys are sending in
of you cooking the recipes, most of them
are of the recipes these guys contribute in the first place.
Yeah, exactly.
You're bypassing--
It's awesome.
--all of our recipes.
But go across to our web site, go and get one of the last few
books if you haven't.
They are brilliant.
Members get a discount.
Everything is down below.
Get all the information, and be happy.
Our resident dad is on holiday at the moment.
And in his absence, he's asked me to read out a joke.
OK.
This is my chance to be daddy.
Has he actually sent-- he sent you one?
He has sent me one.
Oh, good.
This morning I woke up with rice stuck to my face.
You know, I must fallen asleep as soon
as my head hit the perlow.
[DRUM NOISE]
[LAUGHTER]
That's better than any of his.
As we mentioned, Sorted is just run by a group of friends.
So if you like what we're doing, then there
are loads of ways you can support us and get
more involved.
Everything you need to know is linked below.
Thanks, and hope to see you in a few days.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Turn you on?
Do you know what time it is?