(upbeat music)
- Hello, welcome to the channel.
We are Sorted Food.
We have two chefs here.
We have four incredible global spice blends.
We're gonna check 'em in front of these guys,
see how many of those individual spices they can identify?
- I'm gonna be honest, James.
This is a lot nicer to do from the sideline
than you've got the clipboard of answers in front of you.
- I can imagine.
I can imagine you're extremely cocky in that situation.
- Yep. Less so now.
(upbeat music)
- So this is how it works.
You each have a little whiteboard and pen.
Under the cloche is a spice blend.
Gonna give you three minutes to sniff, taste,
write down as many of the spices you can identify
and then I will score points the correct answers.
Does that make sense?
- Yes. - Yes.
- It's absolutely a competition.
It's chef versus chef. Let's see who wins.
Number one.
- Yep.
(upbeat music)
(James laughs)
- Your time starts now.
(bell rings)
I'm looking for 16.
- 16? - Spice blends.
- It is really fun being on the side here.
Look how stressy they are, oh Ebbers!
What types of things are you getting?
- So there's definitely a heat there.
- There is spice.
- So some sort of chilli or spiced pepper,
but I would also say there is a lot of spice
I would associate often with sweet things
like mixed spice, seminal spice.
There's kind of those fragrances in there too.
- Floral. - Floral.
- In order to make this fair, you can't go over 16 answers.
Gonna give you 15 seconds, James.
- I've done a Barry Taylor and I've gone blank.
- It's so hard, isn't it?
To remember 16 spices.
Three, two, one.
(bell rings)
Drop your pens please.
Okay. So first point.
Ebbers, what have you got for the spice blend?
- A Garam Masala. - James, what do you have?
-Ras el hanout.
- I can confirm it is Garam Masala
Well done Ebbers.
One point to you.
So Garam Masala spice blend from north India.
Every family and brand and restaurant
has their own variation.
Garam, meaning hot, but not spicy but aromatic in Hindi,
and Masala meaning mixture.
Let's see how many you have.
I'm gonna read these if you tick, as you go.
And then I'd like you to reveal your whiteboards
to prove you haven't been cheating.
Starting with bay leaves, cinnamon sticks.
I will take cinnamon.
Fenugreek, mace, caraway.
- I was gonna put that.
- Whole cloves, coriander seeds, ground ginger
black peppercorns, cumin seeds, stone flower,
(James chuckles)
green cardamon pods,
dried red chillies, black cardamon pods,
dried rose petals.
- And what's rose petals in it?
- Technically I didn't specify cardamons,
so I can have both.
- You can have two points if you've put Cardamon.
And whole nutmeg.
- Nutmeg.
- I'm sorry.
You put black stone flower.
This is some to be (beep).
What is going on here?
- To be fair.
We did have it on the channel about two weeks ago.
So I presume that Kush might have shoehorned it
in just for the lols.
- Right. I must have missed that video.
- It's inside information but-
If you watched our channel, then you would know.
How many have you got, Ebbers?
- 10
- [Mike] James
- 8.
- Close.
- That's actually, I'll take that lightly.
- Pretty good.
- I think you've done fantastically well.
Best bit about this video.
Do you wanna try some in action?
- Yes please.
- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, now it's worth the humiliation.
- Now I know why it is better to be in the hot seat.
- Here you have malai chicken tikka,
- Cheers, it smells amazing.
- [Mike] The chicken was marinated in the Garam Masala.
- The thing with spice is,
and we've spoken about it so much before,
sniffing and tasting a dry spice is part of the challenge,
but actually they do change when you cook.
Thank goodness, 'cause you end up
in a completely different place.
- But you can taste it.
You can taste kind of the individuality
of some of the spices.
- Now you've told us I'm a bit annoyed
that I didn't get nutmeg and mace,
that flavour lingers and I'm annoyed I didn't get it.
- [Mike] So other uses traditionally the only spice
in butter chicken is Garam Masala.
- I suppose if it's already got 16 in it.
- Well, I need to make it clear that 16
was just Kush's personal blend
before everyone starts kicking off
and saying there's only six or seven.
This is a guy out to make your lives even more difficult.
And I thank you for it.
- So tasty.
- It's your little reward for a bit of stress early on.
- It was worth it.
(upbeat music)
- Okay. Number two, please lift the cloche.
- Different colour.
- [Mike] It is a different colour.
- [James] Oh dear.
- Gonna start your three minutes
in three, two, one. (bell rings)
- I feel like it's more citrusy, more tangy
- Yeah, it is tangy.
It's sweet and salty already.
It feels very complete.
Really delicious.
- [Mike] Is it?
- Yeah. So nice.
- How many are we looking for?
- Got a little bit easier on this time, 14.
- 14.
- This is crazy.
- Are you trying to identify the individual spices?
Are you trying to identify a region?
How your brain works?
- Oh, a region might be a good way of doing it?
I'm thinking broad flavours.
And then what spices offer that in a mix?
- I'm sweating.
- Yeah, so much.
There's definitely some chilli in this one as well.
- [Mike] Have a minute remaining guys.
- 14!
- 14. You getting any visual clues?
- [Ben] The colour alone is giving us some
but the no, the rest is so finally ground up.
- 30 seconds.
- What is?
What are you?
(Mike giggles)
- Remember, there is a bonus point
for naming this spice blend.
Five, four, three, two, one.
(bell rings)
Drop the pens please.
We'll start with you, James.
- [James] Okay.
- Have you got a name for the blend?
- Yes, but is definitely wrong.
Ah, Baharat.
- Ebbers?
- No.
It's from the middle east and it is very kind of Lebanese
and this is where I was thinking maybe Ras el hanout
but only 'cause you mentioned it earlier,
but I feel like it's that middle east
and north African thing.
- This is Berbere.
- Oh yeah.
- Yeah, wow. African. - Ethiopian.
So that's something that you've both heard of?
- Yeah.
- So we yeah. Ethiopia.
Looking African.
James, I can see you've written down African.
- [James] Yeah.
- So let's go through the spices.
We have coriander seeds,
cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, black peppercorns,
cardamon pods, cloves, allspice berries,
onion flakes, red chillies,
smoked sweet paprika.
I will accept paprika or smoke Paprika.
Cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and turmeric.
- [Ben] Not very good at all, really?
- Damn.
- Please reveal your score at the same time.
Three, two, one.
- Five.
- Four.
- Can I cheer you up with some food using this spice?
- Yes, please.
- Forgot about that.
- [Ben] Oh, interesting.
- [James] Okay.
- This is a traditional Ethiopian dish Kitfo
which is spiced Ethiopian beef tartar
with berbere brown butter.
- Excellent. Is it through the beef mixture as well?
- It's through the butter, which is folded through
through the beef tartar.
Dig in.
- This looks incredibly.
How does it taste in situ?
- Less spicy.
- Mellowed out by the fat of the butter.
- Yes. Very tasty.
- I'm getting a lot of that citrusy note
which I'm thinking now we know is probably the cardamon
and the coriander seed.
- So from our research, the spice blend is used
across all the elements, cooking.
Any sort of inspirational things
that you'd like to try out on moving forward?
- It's absolutely loving this butter.
So I think adding it to fat
to stretch it out a bit further,
so maybe some fatty meats as well,
actually this is quite a lean beef
but the butter is what adds the fat.
But I imagine it would also work really nice
with fatty lamb.
- Like a slow cook.
I think trying it in a slow cook would be, that'd be great.
- Let's move on to the next one, then.
Number three.
(upbeat music)
Number three. Please lift the cloche.
- Oh, it's brown to the same colour as first one.
- Oh, it's brown.
- Oh.
- [James] Oh, it's really ground up as well.
- Yeah. There's no visual clues at all.
- Again, we're looking for the spice blend
and the five spices that make up that blend.
Your three minute starts now.
(bell rings)
- Okay, here we go.
- Give me some tasting notes.
- Hot, but not spicy.
- A numbing warmth, but also, earthy.
Whereas the last one was more citrusy
and the first one quite frequent and almost floral,
this is more earthy.
- [Mike] One minute remaining.
- I just had a massive uncertainty.
- So much concentration.
Five, four, three, two, one.
(bell rings) Drop your pens please.
Ebbers. What's the spice blend?
- I don't know, but I think it might be Caribbean.
- James. What's the spice blend?
- I don't know.
- [Mike] Do you have a region?
- Put China, because it's quite five spicy,
but I know it's not.
- [Mike] It is Qâlat daqqa,
a Tunisian five spice blend.
- Okay.
- Wow. Never heard of it.
Which is what I love about continuing doing these things.
- Let's do some tick off some listing.
- [Ebbers] Yep. - [James] Yep.
- [Mike] Cloves,
- Yeah.
- [Mike] Nutmeg.
- No, no.
- Grains of paradise.
- Which when you know
where it's come from makes more sense.
- Black peppercorns, ground cinnamon.
- Oh, no.
- Oh, yes cinnamon. I knew cinnamon.
- That is a jar of grains of paradise.
- Yeah.
- Oh, wow.
Lemon, lime.
- Mm, cool, isn't it?
- Yeah.
- Ginger, coriander, cardamon.
- Let's get totals.
Ebbers. How many did you identify?
- Only two in that.
- James?
- I also only got two.
- Terrible 40%.
- Oh, we're going into the last round we're all to play for.
But would you like to eat some food using Qâlat daqqa?
- [Ebbers] Look at that.
- [James] Smells amazing.
- [Mike] This is Tunisian couscous with spiced grilled fish.
We have sardines and mullet there.
And the Qâlat daqqa has been used in the marinate
the fish and was in the stock
that we use to make the couscous.
And it's also through this rose harissa yoghourt dip
that you have, which looks amazing.
- It smells like a blend of the spice and fishy fish.
'Cause it's sardines
and actually works really well together.
- Cheers.
(upbeat music)
- It's a very different sort of spice
'cause it's not a hot spice as in chilli
but it is a warm spice.
- Like the warmth of pepper?
- [Ben] The warmth of pepper.
- Yeah.
- And the clove and the nutmeg is almost that numbing.
It's a bit like szechuan pepper in that sense as well.
It's that spice that just is warm and sunny numbing.
- So you've never heard of this before?
- Nope.
- I love it.
I love it when chefs experience something new
and react to it.
- Have heard of all the things that go into it.
So the spices themselves aren't particularly different
to what we'd already used,
but in this combination and in this ratio, an application,
it's a completely different style of cuisine.
- I love the flavour of all spice
and put with the the pepper and the grains of paradise.
It's really delicious.
- I think like before with the spice and the butter,
here the oily fish is lending itself to the spice
and they just kind of really marry up nicely.
- Penultimate round.
There's four points in it.
Ready for round four.
(upbeat violin music)
(chefs chatting)
(chef yells)
- Guys, any help?
(dramatic upbeat music)
- Right. Number four.
Give it a lift.
- [James] Oh. - [Ben] Oh.
- Looks like it glows in the dark.
- How many spices are in it?
- So there are eight spices.
One of them is so rogue.
I'm just gonna give you a chance there.
Your time starts now.
(bell rings)
- Again, colour should make this easier
'cause it's quite bright, but I'm not sure it is helping.
- [Mike] Ebbers' already picking up
on some visual clues, perhaps.
- It's mild.
It's by far the mildest one we've tasted.
There's not a lot of heat to it.
- Quite bitter.
- You've had one minute.
- Damn, this is the hardest one
'cause there's nothing standout in it.
- So you getting nothing from smell?
- It's earthy.
For me it's so citrusy.
Citrusy, spices again, damn.
- [Mike] James, a silent assassin.
- Come on.
- It's the texture that is throwing me
on one particular ingredient.
It reminds me of something I made
in a dish for a battle a long time ago.
- We've done like 1300, 1400 videos.
About 200 of those have been battles.
- That's a whole seed.
So I think that I'm happy with that.
- Six, five, four, three, two, one.
(bell rings)
Please drop your pens.
- Oh, no.
- So, first we're looking for the spice blend.
- No idea.
These are gonna get harder and harder.
So if we barely heard of the last one.
- It is hard.
James.
- I don't know.
From the flavour profile, I put Indian
which isn't even really a region.
It's massive.
So I don't deserve anything really.
- Okay. Ebbers.
- I don't know the spice blend but I wanted to put Thailand
but I changed it to Cambodia 'cause it sounds more random.
- The spice blend is Poudre de Colombo.
- Oh.
- A Caribbean Curry powder.
So Colombo is the capital of Sri Lanka.
And the Sri Lankan plantation workers
when they went over to the Caribbean
took the spice blend with them.
- Okay. So it's got lots of different cultural.
- Yeah.
Okay. Let's see how many you got.
- Okay.
- [Mike] Cumin seeds.
- Yes. I found a whole one.
- [Mike] Coriander seeds.
You know that those two go together.
Black mustard seeds.
I will accept mustard seeds.
Peppercorns.
- Oh no.
- [Mike] Fenugreek.
- Ah! I rub that one out.
- Yes.
- Whole cloves.
- [James] Yes.
- Turmeric and toasted white rice.
- I have only seen toasted ground white rice
done once before.
And that's when I did it in a battle.
- But did you put it down on the list?
- Yes.
- Oh Ebbers.
- Because of the texture.
That's that white crunch.
And I've only done it,
I've don't think I've ever had it done properly.
I've only ever done it myself based on what I read.
- So how many do you get Ebbers?
- Six.
- [Mike] Oh, James.
- I got four.
- [Mike] Got four.
- I've been absolutely destroyed.
- Let's see if we can cheer you up James
by bringing in some food.
- I'll always be cheered up by food.
- Ooh.
- That is exciting.
- [Mike] You are gonna love this.
These are mutton curry rotis'.
- Wow.
- So the spice blend has been stirred through the sauce
when it's all together in the bowl.
And you've also got some of the sauce
in the little bowl as well.
You said the blend was quite subtle.
Is it coming through?
- Well, it's perfectly spiced, but because it's not spicy
it's actually lending itself really nicely
to all of the lamb fat, mutton fat.
The texture of the crunch of the toasted rice
on its own is a raw spice, which again is a weird way
to experience all spice blends is kind of lost in here
because you lose that crunch of texture for the better.
- Okay.
- But I don't know what it adds as a fragrance.
It's quite interesting.
- It's a subtle spice.
- Oh, I'm so jealous.
- This is the best thing we've eaten today.
- I got completely the wrong side of the world.
Despite getting the majority of the spices
which is just testament to how far spices travel
and how interesting the swap and marriage
and blend of different spice in different ratios
can take you to completely different cuisine.
You can get the majority right
and still be so, so wrong.
- Sri Lanka and Caribbean coming together
for this incredible dish.
- I actually have no idea there was any kind
of cultural input from Sri Lanka to the Caribbean.
I know that there are curries in the Caribbean
but I'd never really like made the connection.
- So there was a total of 47 points up for grabs
including naming the correct spice blend.
Ebbers, you got 24.
James 18.
I think that's absolutely amazing considering
you didn't know three of them.
- That was rough.
- Yeah.
- I say that holding a delicious piece of food.
- I'm prepared to go through the humiliation
of only scoring half to sit and eat four,
- Stop it!
-To sit and eat four plates of food.
- You're doing it on purpose.
- [Mike] You did very, very well.
- Thank you.
- Over to you guys.
Had you heard of any of those spice blends?
Did you guess any of those correctly
also tell us some other incredible global spice blends
that we can discover and challenge our chefs to next time.
(upbeat music)
(beeps)
- It's so difficult
and you must know that through wine tasting as well.
- It's difficult to pick it out,
it tells you it's there.
- Ah James. Why did you mention that?
- Sorry. I haven't seen him for a while.
- I'm trying to wean him off that.
(James laughs)