(egg cracks)
(oil sizzles)
(upbeat music)
- Hello and welcome back to "Sorted Food".
Now, for today's fried chicken battle,
we welcome expert judge James Cochran.
So James, as winner of both Great British Menu
and Eaters London Chef of the Year,
what tips would you give our normals
when it comes to cooking under pressure?
- I expect to see perfection,
but shout out, you're using thigh,
gutted you're using a breast.
- This is gonna be brutal.
- I was gonna say my recipe was heavily inspired
by your chicken burger.
I think was one of the best chicken burgers I've ever had.
So, I'm gonna try and do it justice here.
- Don't try and suck up to him now.
- Yeah, well we'll wait and see I guess won't we?
- Right, okay, right.
- Now, we've given you guys plenty of prep time
with the food team to come up with a fried chicken recipe
that showcases James's chili jam
straight from the restaurant, 1251.
We're gonna give you one hour
and we want you to create something that is worthy
of a twist badge.
- This is the fried chicken battle.
Three, two, one, fried chicken.
(upbeat music)
So can I ask you what you're actually doing?
- I'm making deviled scotch bonnet eggs.
- I don't like eggs.
(laughs)
- But you love chicken.
- [James] Yeah.
- And what came first, the chicken or the egg?
We don't know,
so I'm going to put them together.
So imagine a chicken scotch egg.
- Okay, I'm down with that.
- [Jamie] Okay.
So fried chicken around the outside.
We'll make like a sausage with that,
wrapped in cornflakes because what do chickens eat?
- [James] Corn, corn.
- There we go.
In the inside you've got the boiled egg,
but we're going to remove the yolk
and we're gonna make a deviled mayonnaise with.
- [James] Hello.
- The scotch bonnet chili jam.
- Nice.
- And we're going to pipe that back in
served with a little bit of garnish
and a really lovely prune brown sauce.
- I'm actually quite excited to try this now.
And over here, what's going down?
- So.
- Do you want to read from my menu?
- Huh?
Sorry, yeah, the ingredients look like
I might be cooking your chicken burger,
but I am making a beer battered chicken stuffed chicken
on a watermelon tomato salad,
mixed with your chili jam,
and that incredible blue cheese mousse.
- Thank you very much.
- You serve your burgers.
- Nice.
- I'm using the chicken thigh,
but not as you'd necessarily hope it to be used.
I'm blending it up with a load of herbs
and shallots and garlic.
Basically making a pate to go into my chicken breasts
and I'm gonna be beer battering that and deep frying it.
- I'm gassed, I'm looking forward to it.
- This is kind of a chicken sausage
that I'm gonna be squeezing into
the middle of my chicken breast.
So therefore you haven't got to worry about
the ooze that you would have in the chicken Kiev.
It all should cook at the same time.
- Well, I'm interested to see like
how you're going to taste it for seasoning.
- What, with raw chicken?
- Yeah are you going to like wrap it double
on in clingfilm and steam it and then?
- Plan of action was to just go by eye.
- [James] Just wing it, yeah.
- Just wing it,
and basically be generous with the seasoning.
- We'll see what happens, won't we?
- So across the whole of this year,
our normal home cooks are competing for badges
and they're trying to prove that they are improving
and therefore we have a leaderboard.
This is how it looks as it stands.
I'm going to award the twist badge at the end.
You're here to judge the winner
of the ultimate fried chicken battle.
So James, years and years of training
in multiple restaurants in and out of London,
Michelin star and beyond,
what have you taken from that
to create your own sort of vibe of food at 1251?
- It's the roots behind 1251
is it stems from my backgrounds.
I'm half Scottish, half Ascension.
I guess it's learning the techniques
that I've learned throughout my kind of whole career,
and just bringing that into my style of food.
We kind of work really well as a team together
and touch wood, we're fully booked every day.
So I've got no complaint.
- I know.
I know.
I tried to book and,
unless you want to eat at 5pm, it's impossible.
- Yeah, so I'm looking to open up Around the Cluck
probably around October time.
And I say this, whoever the winner is,
we should put your dish on.
- Wow, that's a bombshell we did not expect.
That's awesome.
- Yeah.
Why not?
Come on, yeah.
- So this is the sausage part.
It's also the fried chicken part of my scotch eggs.
This is going to wrap around my egg
and is then going to be paneed later on
in the flour, eggs, and cornflakes.
- And do you plan to taste it at all?
Like we're just risking it?
- Oh no.
I said it.
I didn't do it.
Chef, I'm so sorry.
This is how you do it in the show at a restaurant yeah?
Season the bag.
- Woo.
- I forgot to season the blender.
I'm sorry.
- [Ben] Of course, what now,
you're going to massage that in?
- Yeah, it's a new technique.
I tenderize the meat.
You got to mix it in there and set.
- So before I process my sausage,
I'm just gonna season it.
- [Ben] How could you taste it
if you wanted to double check?
- [Jamie] I could fry a little bit off.
- [James] Yep.
- [Jamie] And then taste that and then adjust the seasoning.
- [James] Exactly.
- Well, I now need to make a hole to stick my filling into.
I'm gonna get a paring knife,
cut a hole into the breast.
Try and get as far down the breast as possible
'cause I want this really deeply filled.
Don't get a close up of this, please.
I don't want this on the internet.
- [James] They look really good, man.
Can I give you a tip?
- [Barry] Yeah, man, please.
- I'd say maybe just cut that a little bit off there
because.
- [Barry] Cook it more evenly.
- [James] Yeah, exactly.
- [Barry] Okay.
- [James] Yeah, so it won't go dry at the end.
- [Barry] Snacking chicken.
- Can you make a chicken nugget as well?
There we go.
- Look at that.
Decent.
- Whilst I make my snacking chicken patty
to test for seasoning, not just for snacking,
I can make my brown sauce, which is gonna include prunes.
- What's a prune?
- A prune.
- Is a.
- Plum.
Fig, no plum.
- This is good, I like it, good game, good game.
- It's a plum.
It's like a dried plum.
It's like the raisin equivalent of a grape.
- Yes, exactly.
- [Ben] Yes.
- [James] Yes, exactly.
- I just like to test them occasionally.
They know it.
They just never think they know it.
- So how are you making this sauce then?
- [Jamie] Onion, prunes, garlic, brown sugar,
some cider vinegar, tomato paste.
This interesting.
- [James] Marvelous sauce, yeah.
- [Jamie] Interesting delicious sauce.
We're going to go.
- [James] Portion.
- [Jamie] Into this machine.
It's gonna cook it for us.
- [James] Nice.
- Oh, I imagine that water probably needs to go in,
doesn't it?
- Tell us about the sauce 'cause it's not just available
at the restaurant now.
Like you jar this stuff.
It's that good.
- Yeah, yeah.
Teamed up with Sauce Shop.
We've just launched this scotch bonnet jam.
So we've been developing for the last couple of years or so.
- Couple of years.
- Yeah with Sauce Shop.
Yeah.
- Nice.
- It's probably one of the proudest moments.
I'm super proud of like.
Again, it's something that's super close to my heart
and my signature dish at my menu.
We've done it with some scotch bonnet jam
and the people come to the restaurant and you know what?
They talk about more about the jam than they do the chicken.
- So when I had your chicken burger.
- Yeah.
- [Barry] The two obvious things
that jumped out to me were that chili jam
and that incredible blue cheese mousse,
and the reason it's so incredible to me
is I don't like blue cheese.
- [James] Oh fair enough, okay.
- [Barry] The flavor combination was incredible.
So I'm sticking to that, but I'm not putting it in a burger.
I'm putting it in a salad.
- [James] Yeah, yeah.
- So I've got watermelon, tomato, chili jam,
and then I'm going to smoke it.
And I'm going to be basically dolloping
your blue cheese mousse around it.
- Yeah, okay.
- [Ben] I'd say depending on how you interpret,
another flavor combination I've been inspired by
or stolen from your menu.
- [Barry] All inspired, mate.
(upbeat music)
- Snacking chicken.
Needs a tiny bit more salt.
Right, time for the worst job in the kitchen,
time to peel hard boiled eggs.
- [James] You want a tip?
Just crack it like on that,
and put it back in the water and peel it in the water.
- [Jamie] In the water.
- [James] And it should just come straight off.
- So salad wise, I've got, I've cubed my watermelon.
Chop up some shallots, and some tarragon.
Mix that in with some cherry tomatoes.
Then in with our olive oil and the chili jam.
It's flipping spicy this.
And you've got to be generous
because we need to spice the dish.
Mix it up and then smoke it with a smoking gun.
'Cause every normal has that nowadays.
- So on top of the challenges of running a restaurant
and setting up the sauce stuff,
you also somehow find time to do some really good things.
Like you did school dinners,
you were working on last year.
- [James] Yeah.
- And there's a charity that you know I know
you're very heavily involved with.
- Yeah.
So Hospitality Action, I've been working with them
for the last kind of couple years.
I've really kind of got more into it in lockdown
when we knew our industry
was in an absolute crisis, obviously.
We decided to do a nice thing where we got t-shirts designed
and we kind of raised a lot of money through that.
So if any kind of support that myself
and the team could do at 1251, we'll carry on doing that.
And we still have more projects planned for the future.
- You're supposed to be getting that smoke in the bowl, Baz.
- I'm trying, I don't.
- Barry.
- What?
- What are you doing?
- I'm smoking my watermelon.
- [Ben] We do have a fire alarm.
- Get it, get it, get it.
Stop, stop, stop.
Well sealed, happy with that.
So good you can't even see my salad.
And I'm gonna leave that for as long as I possibly can.
About 30 minutes I think.
- [Jamie] It's now the construction of my scotch eggs.
So I've got my sausage meat.
That's been chilling down.
I'm gonna roll it out in between two pieces of clingfilm.
I can then pop my egg into the middle
and then fold up the clingfilm,
so it goes around the egg,
squeeze it round.
I have this beautiful ball,
which I'll then pan in the flour, egg, cornflakes.
- You're going to keep it as egg shaped as possible,
or you rounding it off?
- [Jamie] Ebbers, it will be what it will be.
- And will there be,
will the meat be evenly around the egg?
- [Jamie] Sometimes.
- Just because we don't want like sashimi.
- No, no, no, no.
- Took some self raising flour and some rice flour
in with some vodka and some beer to make our beer batter.
Quite a thick batter 'cause you want this
to kind of go really crispy and light
and the vodka should do that
because it cooks quicker.
Lucky there's some spare,
just the right amount as well for me.
- [James] Are you double panning or single?
- [Jamie] Double.
Flour, egg, cornflakes, egg, cornflakes.
- [Barry] Are you still confident, J?
- [Jamie] Still got the confidence.
- [Barry] So now I'm going to make my, sorry,
your blue cheese mousse.
(laughs)
Out of interest.
- [James] Yeah.
- [Barry] How, how do you make your blue cheese mousse?
- [James] So one kilo of blue cheese,
one kilo buttermilk.
- [Barry] Well that's where I'm going wrong.
- [James] 10 grams of agar.
Take it to 100 degrees on the firmer.
Set it, blend it, pass it.
- [Barry] Well why is the agar so important
to have in there then?
- Oh, to make it set.
Set it basically, because I take it to 100 degrees.
- [Barry] So it's actually a mousse
whereas this is just a blue cheese cream.
- [James] Yeah, yeah.
- Okay.
- Let's get these eggs into the fryer.
170 degrees.
About six minutes until deep golden brown.
- [Ben] 15 Minutes.
- Amazingly there's a piping bag in here
that's already ready to go.
- [Jamie] That's my piping bag.
- [Barry] I just figured they were already prepped
for us to use.
- [Ben] James, as we approach the final deadline,
where do you see the pressure points?
- [James] A good balance of flavor.
Making sure that the chili doesn't overpower the whole dish.
Presentation, I guess, is key as well.
- Well Jamie's just filled a bucket with his sauce.
(both laugh)
- [James] Wow.
- [Jamie] Portion size is.
- [Ben] Not something you've ever scrimped on, Jamie?
- No, top priority.
- [Ben] What are you thinking, J?
- They're looking quite golden brown already
and they're only about halfway cooked.
- I mean, don't forget what color they started.
- Dark.
- [Ben] They started golden brown.
So you're not aiming for golden brown.
You are aiming for quite dark and not a burn.
- [James] Yeah, you're not aiming for a burn.
- [Ben] Nine minutes.
- Really?
Okay.
- [Ben] Once you're sure it's not stuck,
you can get everything else plated up first.
- [James] Yeah exactly, yeah.
- Yeah, that's stuck.
- Is it really?
Though you might rip the basket away from
the actual things that the chicken might be exposed
and the fats won't come out of it.
- Have to do the other one.
Still worked.
- So when you put it in the fryer, just hold it in there.
- [Barry] Hold it first?
- Hold it in there for like 10 seconds, 15 seconds,
and then just push it away from you
so none of the fat's going to come back onto you.
- They are absorbing all of your tips
because Jamie has seen the size of his bucket,
taken your advice, and found a smaller one.
- What Ben meant to say was I heard the
(beep)
and I adjusted my basket size.
And so I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll get a little dipping
rather than a, you know, a bucket of.
- So quantity over quality.
- Scotch eggs done.
Brown sauce done.
Now I need to make the deviled mayo
for which I need to cut into my scotch eggs
and spoon out the yolk.
- So basically you're just making mayonnaise
with scotch bonnet jam in it.
- Yes.
- And you're not concerned with that sauce overpowering
the scotch bonnet jam?
- No, because that's like a dipping sauce.
I don't know which way round my egg is.
- In the middle.
- I'm guessing it's in the middle.
- And they're egg-shaped.
- Yeah.
- You're hoping to cut down
so it's the right way round of an egg.
- Well, yeah, but which way round is that, Barry?
- [Barry] Oh, I get you, no, I see the point.
- The chicken's not cooked all the way through.
We have a really fancy, like, microwave type thing
in this new kitchen.
So I'm just gonna pop it in there for a couple of minutes.
And that will.
- You're just gonna microwave your scotch egg?
- The egg might explode, no?
- [Barry] Oh, well, that would be amazing.
- There's only one way to find out.
Sorry, Barry.
I'm just gonna use this microwave.
- Five minutes.
- It's fine.
- Barry, you got to finish cooking your chicken
and fast, all the way through.
Use the probe.
J, we need a mayo.
(screams)
(tense music)
- Jamie, did you ever think you'd be
microwaving scotch eggs for James Cochran?
(all laugh)
- [Ben] Last couple of minutes.
- [James] Quite hungry, lads.
Looking forward to this.
- [Ben] Do you want some herb-y flowers?
- Yes, Ebbers.
That would be really useful.
- If you can identify what they are,
you can use them.
- [Barry] Do I get a badge if I can.
Oh, these are pretty.
Are these from your garden?
- Allotment, yes.
Freshly foraged for you.
Two minutes.
(tense music)
(beep)
- How you going over there, chef?
You've got, let me guess.
Let me guess.
You've got massive lump of egg in there.
- [Ben] He's lost the star nozzle.
Now's all gone for more mister whippy.
45 seconds.
Baz is looking dainty.
Jamie's filling a basket with corn flakes.
- Three, two, one.
(bell rings)
Stop cooking.
- You've
(beep)
it.
- Anything you could have done with that
and you did nothing.
- Is that just a basket full of cornflakes?
- Yeah.
- Boys, no pressure, but James has spent a lifetime
in Michelin star restaurants,
and now he's judging your dishes.
- I've served him up a basket of cornflakes.
- Well, if it all goes wrong,
I'll just eat the cornflakes then won't I.
- Right, let's start with this one.
James, help yourself.
- [James] Thank you very much.
- [Jamie] Please enjoy my deviled scotch bonnet eggs
served with the scotch bonnet chili jam
within the mayo,
and the scotch bonnet chili jam
is in the dipping sauce as well,
which is like a brown plum sauce.
- All right.
Cheers.
- Cheers.
- That scotch bonnet jam makes it, doesn't it?
- Yeah, you would say that.
- That's really nice.
- Yeah?
- Yeah.
Really, really nice.
- Yeah.
I like the twist that you've done on a scotch egg
by taking out the middle and then incorporating
the scotch bonnet,
and I think you've got a nice heat in there.
It's not over the top.
- [Ben] The twist up on the breadcrumbs, the cornflakes.
- [Jamie] Yeah.
- They've got a good texture to them as well.
- The chicken is still nice and moist.
- Just cooked.
(snickers)
- All right, Baz, should we dig in here?
- Yeah, please.
Enjoy beer battered double chicken.
- [James] And where's the chili jam incorporated in this?
- [Barry] So chili jam is,
is been tossed throughout the salad.
- [James] Okay.
- [Barry] The salad should have a nice warmth to it
and hopefully you get the touch of smoke in there as well.
- Cheers.
- The crunch is phenomenal.
It really is good.
I'll say it's lacking a bit of seasoning.
Not to be harsh either,
but it's a little bit dry as well.
- Yeah.
- [James] A little bit dry, yeah.
- I think I was aiming for 70,
but I should have taken it out the fryer
and let it come to 70.
- Yeah.
Let it finish cooking through.
- My recommendation, Baz, would be to take
the chicken out of the fryer a couple minutes early
and then into the microwave.
- Into the microwave.
- Just give it a little boost.
- As a plate, a lot more inviting with the colors,
and the like the tomatoes, the watermelon, the blue cheese.
That's an epic combo with that sweet chili jam.
- I like the smokiness and the blue cheese,
not too strong for me either.
- On its own it's got a kick,
but with everything it's lovely.
- You both should be proud of that.
Those are nice dishes.
- Which, as always, makes the judging really difficult.
I get to dish out one twist badge.
For me, the dish that had the cleverest twist,
is the scotch egg with the corn and the chicken.
Chicken instead of pork, J, you get the badge.
- Smashed it.
- Get it.
- I also annoyingly would agree.
That was really smart.
- But that's not what we're here for, the badge.
We're actually here for the ultimate fried chicken battle,
and James has that honor.
- For me, both were lovely dishes.
I think we can all agree that you smashed it
with the scotch egg and I'll see that dish at Christmastime
at Around the Cluck.
- Yes.
(clapping)
- J, that's epic.
- [Jamie] I'm gonna be on a real menu.
- [James] Yeah, you are.
Yeah, you are as well.
- [Jamie] Yeah.
I think that would work.
- Yeah.
I might not put the cornflakes on there.
- Wow.
- So as always, over to you guys,
who do you think was most worthy of the twist badge today
and comment down below.
Did James make the right final choice?
- A massive thank you, James, for coming down.
Where can people find out more about you?
- So I'm on Upper Street Angel, 1251.
We plan to drop Around the Cluck mid roundabout mid-October
and my scotch bonnet jam by now on the platforms
of Sauce Shop, myself, and it'll be popping up
left, right, and center all over the UK.
- We'll stick all the links down below.
Go check them out and thanks again.
- Thank you very much guys.
- Awesome, awesome fun.
- I'm gonna be in a restaurant.
- With a microwaved scotch egg.
- I know.
- Mental.
- Yeah, but he'll do a proper job of it.
(beep)
Whilst Baz has been inspired by your menu,
I'm kind of inspired by your tattoo.
Quite like the 1251, I might get S O R T E,
but if only I had six digits, I would commit.
I would commit.
- I know where you could put the D.
- That's quite a joke you made.
(all laugh)
- That was, you walked into into that one.
It was really easy.