(egg cracking) (oil sizzling)
- Hello, we are "Sorted Food".
And today we're gonna be feeding two of our normals
some potentially polarising pretentious ingredients.
We're gonna get them to see
if they can guess what they are.
Then we'll put them into a dish,
and ultimately wanna know what they think of them.
A proper, honest review.
- I'm ready for it.
I'm ready to be polarising and polarised.
Put your sunblock on.
(laughing)
(upbeat music)
Right, come on now, number one.
- I'll start.
- Do you know what instantly this looks like to me?
Some sort of cheesy powder that would be on crisps.
- That looks like Cheetos dust.
- Yeah.
- Does it smell like Cheetos dust?
- It does not smell like Cheetos dust.
- Oh, it smells like fish dust.
(upbeat music)
Oh, that is the fishiness, it keeps giving.
(laughing)
Oh, what's the, because of the texture,
basically it's fishy.
And then it sort of dissolves into a paste
that just covers everything.
- Any guesses?
- I think it's some sort of shrimp based seasoning
that probably is designed
to bring out umami and stuff.
- It is grey mullet roe.
Bottarga.
So this particular one is an Italian product,
although the process of drying and using mullet roe
exists all over the world.
So, you get it in Taiwan, you get it in Korea.
You get it in places like Greece as well.
- And my guess is that you're not supposed to
eat it as a powder?
- Yeah, absolutely not.
It is rarely eaten off of a teaspoon.
- Okay, fine.
- Would you like to have it in situ?
- (together) Yes, please.
(upbeat music)
- [Mike] That looks delicious.
- A wonderful Italian seafood dish that has been finished
with Bottarga powder, just sprinkled over as is.
- Well straight off the bat, that is top notch.
- Yeah, now obviously this has a big seafood taste
to it anyway because it's packed full of seafood.
What the powder does is take that flavour to the next level.
It makes the prawns taste far more of prawns
than they did before.
It makes the calamari taste far more like calamari
than it does without it.
As a seasoning, that's superb.
- It's a different texture from anything else
on the dish, and it's really pleasant.
And it does really make a difference taste-wise, doesn't it?
- It does.
- Wow.
- In terms of process, the roe is hand massaged
to remove any air pockets,
and it is then slowly dried and preserved in salt.
- So, so it's some, it's people's jobs
to massage fish eggs?
- Uh-huh, and it's more kind of massaging
to get rid of any air pockets.
Cause if you've got like a-
- Oh, that would be the worst, wouldn't it?
- A sack of eggs, you don't want air pockets in it as well.
- Oh, sack of eggs is such a horrible term.
- Do you, can I have a ballpark figure
at how long the process takes because
that will affect highly the price that I guess.
- Yeah.
- Give or take, depending on how long it takes to massage,
about two weeks of drying.
- Are there any other comparable products out there
that have a comparable effect?
- I think it is fairly unique as that,
but there are lots of examples out there of things
that are either salted or fermented and dried
that you can grate over and give that umami kick.
And the salted duck egg that we looked at,
or fermented duck egg, a while ago is one of those.
To be honest with you, aged Parmesan is similar.
How much for that 40 gramme jar?
- £20.
- £14.
- £8.40.
- Oh, for a little jar?
- [Ben] And it does make it over £210 a kilo.
- As far as seasonings go,
where we've looked at truffle salts
or 2,000 year old salts and peppers and things like that,
that is on the cheap end of other things we've reviewed.
- I mean, it's still very expensive.
- It's still a lots of money, but I don't know
whether it's expensive.
- I think that's okay.
I think it does an amazing job, and it's great.
I can't really think of anything similar
that's not Parmesan.
- Pretentious or not?
- That's not pretentious at all.
That's great, and it's local to the wonderful people
of Italy and it works.
- I think it's pretentious, but not in a bad way.
- Number two.
(upbeat music)
- Straight off the bat, kimchi paste.
- Like chorizo-y nduja.
- Nduja, now should we actually smell it and taste it
and change our answers?
- Yes.
- Oh, it's more vinegar-y.
- Yeah, it's really acidic.
But fruity acidic.
- Yeah, very fruity.
- It smells like plums or something like that.
- It could be plums, you know.
- [Mike] You know, like-
- [Jamie] Yeah, like spicy plums.
- [Mike] Yeah.
- [Ben] Taste it.
- It's very thick and very pasty,
and spicy and really ferment-y, really ferment-y.
- It is kimchi-ish.
It's got a really lovely spice to it and it tastes of port.
- This is Kanzuri.
So it is a Japanese aged chilli paste
that is combined with yuzu and koji.
It's got some very interesting methods in it's production,
but shall we put it to some use?
- Oh, what the.
(upbeat music)
- [Jamie] That looks amazing and-
- [Mike] That's a lot of food.
- [Ben] It was emulating a Yakitori grill.
- [Mike] I mean, I'm excited by this-
- It's like being in a TGI Fridays
when they bring out fajitas.
(laughing)
- It's a real selection of chicken skewers.
You've got chicken arms, well, wings, chicken legs,
chicken, chicken thigh, chicken skin, and chicken balls.
(laughing)
- All of the parts of a chicken,
which kind of emulated when I was saying
you got all the parts of the cow, I remember,
right down to the different parts of the stomach.
So we really wanted to give you that experience.
- He lives in his own reality
that he has crafted for himself.
How about what's this?
- Little sake.
- Oh, kanpai, kanpai.
(upbeat music)
- You don't shot it.
That is very nice.
- That's delicious.
Now I just want another one.
- And obviously you got your Kanzuri paste
on this side, which is quite literally a condiment
that you can just dip or rub or spread over
as you enjoy the skewers.
- So it's not cooked in?
- [Ben] No, very much served as a condiment.
- Wow, that's fantastic.
That makes a huge amount of difference.
- So with the chicken skin, obviously,
it's a really fatty, delicious, crispy, crunchy mouthful.
When you add the paste in,
it takes away from the fattiness and the richness
and it just provides that cut through
with a little bit of spiciness.
I didn't miss it, but when it's there, it feels complete.
- So it was a product that up until a few weeks ago
I'd never heard of,
but the process of how they produce it is fascinating.
In late spring, when the snow melts,
they plant the chilli seeds,
and then they grow them through the summer,
and you've got sufficient sun and heat
and light to get wonderful, vibrant, tasty, red chilies.
Then, they harvest them and salt them for a few months
to preserve them while they wait for snowfall again.
Once the snow has fallen,
they scatter the salted chilies out across the snow.
After a few days on the snow,
which naturally dilutes some of the salt,
but also takes some of the heat out of the chilli,
kind of almost sweetens them.
Then they mix it with chopped yuzu rind and the koji.
And as a product, it is really only available
in that very specific region of Japan.
And there's only, we believe, one retailer
that imports and sells it currently,
or so they claim on their own site.
What do we think about price?
- I'm gonna say £10 for the jar.
- I'm gonna say £15 for the jar.
- It's about halfway between the two of you, £12.99,
over £300 a kilo.
And again, you wouldn't buy a kilo of it, but not cheap.
- No, but I feel like I could use this more often
than I could the massaged fish eggs.
- Very true.
- [Ben] In more applications.
- Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.
- Okay. So we've established, it's certainly not cheap.
If anything, it's quite expensive.
- It's very expensive.
- It's also delicious, but is it pretentious?
- No, it's Japanese.
It's meticulously and perfectly executed.
- It's not pretentious.
- But. - But, we are pretentious.
- I would love it as well.
I'd be like, try that, now settle in,
I've got story to tell.
- Let's bring on number three before they pick more holes.
- [Announcer] Our meal packs app helps you become
an all cooking, food waste fighting, cost hacking,
friend impressing, always learning, legendary home cook.
It also gets dinner on the table.
(liquid being poured)
- Right, number three.
Oh, it's some sort of oily fish fillet fillets.
- So far we've been to Italy and Japan.
Where are we going now?
And what do you have on your plate?
- Are we going under the sea?
Is it anchovy of some description?
- It is anchovy of some description.
- Does this look like a normal anchovy?
- It smells like a normal anchovy.
Cheers.
- I had to just do it.
- Oh.
- Cause if I stopped, I wouldn't.
- It's not as harsh as a normal anchovy.
- That's true, it's not salty, is it?
- No, that is actually quite delicious on its own.
- I wouldn't describe it as delicious personally,
but I'm not a fishy person, but you're right.
That is a more delicate anchovy flavour.
- Yeah.
- It's not as harsh on the back of the throat.
- No.
I'm actually really enjoying just eating it.
- It's got meatiness to it, hasn't it?
- The texture's a bit different.
It feels a bit more cured.
Like it's almost salami, pepperoni texture.
- That is a great, what an excellent description.
- You're pretty much spot on.
It is a high end, very delicate, very sublime
anchovy fillet from Zallo, Spain.
It comes in a tin.
- [Jamie] It's gonna be Za-yo.
It's double L letters, and it's Spanish.
(laughing)
- Nicely done.
- Za-yo, you're absolutely right.
Very specifically, these are Cantabrian anchovies,
fished in the Bay of Biscay between March and June
by the Zallo family.
And then tinned in that very area.
Generations of history and family tradition,
and it's still the cannery.
The place where they process them is still run
by the same family.
- It's fuente omega-3.
- Oh full of 'em.
- Sorry, omega tres.
(laughing)
- Thank you.
- Would you like it in situ?
- Oui.
(laughing)
- [Mike] Nice.
- [Jamie] Feel like the food team went all out
on the last couple. - [Mike] But you know what?
- [Jamie] Then gave up.
- Do you know what though?
I'm here for it because that looks amazing.
- It does
- What we have for you is some griddled bread
with some sort of butter and ready for your anchovy.
So, super simple.
- Cheers.
(bread crunching)
- Wow, that is sublime.
- That is like the perfect tapa.
To me the experience of that
should be everything that anchovies are about.
But they're not because they are reduced to being
put onto a pizza and that kind of thing
because they're not the best quality
or they're not the finest premium ones.
That just tastes like a really premium anchovy.
- And kind of the reason we chose this,
we have spoken about it briefly before,
is the idea of stigma.
Not just of tin food, but of what an ingredient
is already supposed to be in a certain place.
We might look down on food that you find in malls
or train stations in the UK.
Yet go to the other side of the world,
it's some of the best, places like Japan.
Some of the best restaurants
are underneath the Metro stations.
And in the case of Spain and Portugal,
some of the best fish can be found in tins.
The last thing perhaps to mention is that the anchovy,
which are obviously relatively small fish,
are hand caught one by one and filleted for you,
which is quite a fiddle-y process.
We focus our purchasing on fresh produce
from the Cantabrian Sea, the Bay of Biscay,
supporting one by one fish capturing techniques
with local fishing fleets,
thus preventing the accidental capture of dolphins.
- How do you accidentally capture a dolphin?
- When you're looking for a fish that big.
(men yelling)
- I didn't mean it!
(dolphin squeaking)
- In which case, let's guess a price.
- £13.
- I'm gonna go lower, I'm gonna go eight.
- [Ben] Only a little higher, about £15.
That's about a pound a fillet.
- I'm preempting the next question.
To me that is not pretentious.
That is a premium version of an already good ingredient.
It's a lot of money, but it's a treat.
And I'm happy with that.
- You gotta try it once, and therefore it's not pretentious
and probably worth splashing out for once.
(upbeat music)
(applause)
(upbeat music)
- Final one, over to you.
- Standard.
- No, no, no, it's not standard.
It's got a leaf, it's got grass in it.
It does not smell of anything.
- You're correct.
We are doing this.
- Are we?
- Yes.
- Right, cheers.
- Cheers.
(men yelling)
Is that citric acid?
(man yelling)
- It tastes like-
- That makes me scat.
- I don't think it does.
- It does, have you scat in your pants?
- No, jazz scat.
(man singing)
Citric acid could be a really, really good description.
- It's that invigorating, I'm doing more.
(men laughing)
- Oh, I'm so alive!
- I have come back for a bigger spoonful.
(men yelling)
- I think it's orange-y.
- [Jamie] Yeah.
- [Mike] It's not lemon-y.
- No, but it's getting back here as well.
In the danglees.
- It tastes like a powdered Baraka.
(Jamie laughing)
- You're supposed to dissolve those.
- Like really, really sharp.
- Citrus family.
- Yeah, it's not like yellow citrus.
It's orange citrus.
That's great.
- This is powdered lemon.
- Oh, completely wrong there.
- Oh, it's not the yellow citrus.
- Main ingredient, maltodextrin.
And then the lemon.
So dehydrated lemon.
That's where you get that flavour,
and they can basically take out all the moisture
and you get something that's very, very fine
and perfect to add to all number of things
where you don't really want the juice or the oil zest.
- Ooh.
(upbeat music)
- Oh yes.
- Yes.
- We eat so well in these videos.
- We really do.
- We are blessed.
- [Ben] What you have is lemon and black tea truffles.
- [Mike] Interesting.
- So we know that when you're working with chocolate,
sometimes adding water is not a good thing
and they don't like each other.
So in this instance, by using the powder
it seems you can also then add it
into the cocoa powder you dust.
So even the cocoa powder dusting has got that lemon flavour.
- That is superb.
- Wow, the lemon cuts through amazingly.
I imagine it's such good quality dark chocolate
that the bitterness is offset by the citrus-y flavour.
- But I'm also getting a really strong taste of the tea.
- Yeah.
- That I don't think I would get if the lemon wasn't there
doing it's job as well.
- So as a product, using the powdered lemon
makes a lot of applications useful.
They also talk about the ability to add it
into like stuffings or bread crumbs
to top fish and things like that.
But a slightly more unusual application,
I would imagine the zest lemon would get you the same place,
but there's lots of places where
that could be very, very useful.
- But if I had this in my house, I would never ever use it
because I can't think of enough situations
where as a normal, it would be useful for me.
- It feels a bit science-y.
- I think the concept of it and what it is
is probably going to spook and scare
a lot of normal home cooks.
I think it's probably more used in professional baking.
- Oh, this has gone straight.
My heart is pumping cause I ate about
three teaspoons of that,
and then I ate one of those.
- Okay, as a pot, 150 grammes,
a little goes an awful long way.
How much?
- I'm gonna say £10 for the tub.
150 grammes, £10.
- £15.
- [Ben] That tub is £9.
So Mike, pretty close.
Makes it £60 a kilo.
Again, goodness, such what you do with a kilo of this stuff.
- I think it's expensive, but like I said,
I think in the right hands
it's got a very, very specific, almost scientific use.
And therefore for me, it's not pretentious.
- It's science, it's not pretentious.
- Over to you guys.
We've talked around the subject a lot today,
but perhaps we missed the point.
Comment down below if you've got something else to add
about any of these ingredients,
especially if you're more familiar with them than we are.
- And comment down below if you have any other ideas
for pretentious ingredients
that we should be reviewing next time.
- And give the video a little, blah, blah like.
- Please.
(upbeat music)
I know what a mullet is.
I know what the colour grey is.
- Yep.
- And I know.
- It's what Ebbers is gonna look like in 20 years time.
(men laughing)