(upbeat rock music)
- [Host] we are Sorted.
A combination of foodies
and chefs who have been mates for years
looking for game-changing food and travel experiences.
Today, we continue our trip in New Orleans to discover
fantastic local food and research what makes a po' boy
because today Barry, Mike and Jamie will go head-to-head
in an ultimate po' boy battle.
(upbeat rock music)
- Ebers and I started the day properly at Ruby Slipper
where we've been recommended their amazing eggs Benedict
which are so amazing they actually let you pick
two different eggs Benedict dishes on the same plate.
- So they're all served on Southern American biscuit
and I've gone for fried green tomato on one
and gulf shrimp sauteed with pork Tasso
and a tomato Coubion on on the other one.
- And there are so many different egg Benedicts on the menu
that I had to ask the waitress for her favorite
and she told me to get the pulled pork
and the fried chicken.
- It's like she knew you.
- It's like she knew me.
- Pork Tasso is a Louisiana ham.
It's kind of spiced with cayenne and garlic
and bits and pieces making the shoulder
and you kind of use it to add flavor or base
to a lot of dishes.
You wouldn't normally serve it on its own.
Here it's with the shrimp and like a tomato-y sauce.
Absolutely smashed it.
Perfect breakfast.
Happy, happy, happy.
Hoo, hoo, hoo!
- It's early in the morning,
we have to eat a classic po' boy.
Members have come to The Orange store which is in a really
cool neighborhood north of the French Quarter
right next the Louis Armstrong Park
which is a stunning, beautiful park.
Nice little street.
This place has been recommended by a New Orleans local.
Who got the recommendation from a local cabbie.
It is a fully dressed butterfly shrimp po' boy
and the thing that sets this place apart
is that they hand butterfly their shrimp every morning
and nowhere else in the whole of New Orleans does that.
- [Man] Oh man, that is so good.
That is so good.
- So in butterflying it, basically that means
you can get more shrimp into the sandwich
and there's tons of it.
- [Mike] Ben and J decided to head to City Park
to enjoy the weather and hitch a ride.
(upbeat techno music)
- [Jaime] Ah, nice to get out on the water.
- This is nice.
Less carbs, J.
- [Jaime] Yes.
- I have to say mate, on a beautiful day like this
there is nowhere else I'd rather be than on the water.
It's relaxing, it's peaceful,
nothing to worry about.
- What was that?
- [Man] That was just me.
- Good.
- [Barry] This is the best thing about our rules.
Josh who was our instructor and tour guide took us around,
told us loads about the swamps, it was absolutely amazing.
- Louisiana is just starting
to get on the map with ecotourism.
We wanted to offer guests
something environmentally friendly,
something where they could get out
and explore nature in a natural way.
So we just love sharing the swamp that we have here,
it's really beautiful.
It's a really important environment.
- [Mike] This is amazing.
- [Jamie] Shh.
- [Mike] This is amazing!
- [Mike] This is ridiculous.
This is nothing like I was expecting at all.
- I'd give you all strong like 3.5 out of 10.
I mean, y'all were adventurous but um.
- What's that?
- [Mike] Man, you need to paddle.
- [Barry] We're stuck.
There's actually something in there.
That little planty area there just shook
and there was a growl.
(laughing)
- There's, there's another gator.
Why is no one else panicking?
Do you hear that, mate?
They're getting hungry.
- [Barry] No, that's the opposite of what he just said!
- It's not funny, it's not funny.
- [Man] Wait, snake, snake!
- Shut up wait don't do where where where-
- You only screamed like three or four times so
in the grand scheme of things that's a
solid score you know.
- [Host] After all that excitement our blood sugar
was low so we decided to treat ourselves to some
sophistication at Mr. B's.
- I'm not to be trusted with my dish.
- Southern hospitality.
- This is Southern hospitality.
- I fee like I'm being really looked after.
- This is blackened barbecue shrimp
that is nothing short of sensational.
That is the meatiest, most beautifully cooked
shrimp I've ever had.
They're rich, they're buttery, they're smokey.
How they've managed to blacken these without
overcooking them, that's spectacular.
- It is unbelievable, it may be the best meal I've had
since being here.
- Ben and I were hungry after all that
paddling so we decided to get some
famous beignets from Cafe Du Monde
- [Barry] It's been nice so far.
- [Mike] It's such a lovely city to just to chill out in.
- [Jamie] Do we think I have anything to worry about?
- [Mike] You have pretty much eaten your body
weight in po' boys in research.
- If this battle goes anything like our normal battles,
I'll be the one pack full of flavor,
Mike's will look like a hot mess,
and Barry will come up with something really unusual.
- And so everything was all said and done,
we'd have plenty of time to learn
as much as we could about po' boys
so it was now time for the battle.
- So the time has come for all three of our
Normals to conjure up their own po' boy
inspired by their time here in the city
Jordan has kindly lent us a kitchen so
your cooking time starts in three, two, one, cook!
- And I'm gonna go first because
mine takes about seven and a half times
longer than either of these two.
I'm taking all of the traditions of a po' boy
and putting them in one po' boy.
I'm making a root beer roast beef
and fried shrimp surf and turf po' boy.
First up, let's get the beef on.
I'm going to put a trivet into a pan,
that's going to be celery, it's going to be carrots,
it's going to be garlic, it's going to be onion.
Then I'm gonna dice up my beef so
it cooks a little bit quicker than it would usually,
gonna sear it off in a really hot pan
and then chuck it into a casserole dish
along with a load of liquid.
The liquid is where this starts to get really interesting.
I found a recipe online for the Parkway Tavern
roast beef po' boy and I have taken a little bit of
inspiration from there which means putting in some
cream of mushroom soup some Kitchen Bouquet
which is something I'd never heard of before,
and then instead of beef stock I'm going to put in
root beer.
Now root beer is something that usually gets served
with a po' boy very traditionally but I thought why not
serve it with it, why not serve it in it.
That's going to head into an oven set at
a very low temperature for a very long time.
Don't forget your bay flavor.
(laughing)
- Now I am going for a cajun shrimp po' boy
with a very colorful fruity slaw and southern comfort sauce.
And that's where I'm starting.
I'm gonna reduce this down about a mugs's
worth of it down to want to have a syrup.
We're going to use as a glaze on top of that
with a bit of ginger and a squeeze of lime.
I'm gonna try to sit from the bottle it's
probably a bad thing innit?
What is Southern comfort?
It's whiskey, got a little whiskey.
- I'm going for an alligator sausage po' boy
covered in etouffee with Swiss cheese on French bread.
Something that we've learned since being here,
the base of so many amazing dishes like
gumbo, etouffee, the Holy Trinity of Cajun cooking,
bell peppers, celery, onion diced, fried off.
So that's what I'm doing first.
No, you get away.
- [Ben] I'm going in.
- [Mike] Get away from it!
Stranger danger, stranger danger, stranger danger,
stranger danger!
- Right, let me talk to you about my slaw.
This has been inspired by the colorful fruity salads
that we had at Commander's Palace
but I'm also adding in a few more touches of
inspiration from the snow bliss, the watermelon snow bliss.
Yeah, dice watermelon into my salad
also adding in segmented orange because that's found in the
crawfish board adding that to my salad as well.
Hopefully these flavors will come
together nicely with my sauce.
Julienne, julienne.
What's wrong with my ...
Ember's just shaking his head at me.
Julienne, julienne, julienne?
- [Host] What are you expecting, an answer?
- I don't know.
(laughing)
Barry's basically made a fruit salad.
(laughing)
- I can't deny that, you're right.
- So as well as alligator sausage I'm also gonna stuff
my po' boy with boudin which is a French sausage.
This one in particular has rice and spices
running throughout and it's going into my Holy Trinity base.
Next I need to make a roux inside this lot,
then I'm splashing in a bit of water
tiny bit at a time cooking it out making
sure that flour cooks out and you're
gonna get an amazing sauce look at it!
I'd eat that just off the spoon.
- My roast beefs been roasting for two-and-a-half
hours it probably needs another two and a half hours.
In the mean time, I'm going to make my shrimp.
Now I'm gonna do fried shrimp so I'm gonna pan it,
I'm going to season it with Cajun spices.
- [Jamie] You're not lad enough to do that!
- [Barry] Why am I not lad enough to do that?
- No you're not!
You're not going to do that!
- Why is Barry trying to be me I don't get it.
It's cuz he knows I win battles.
How good is that?
- It's a lovely roast dinner in there, not a po' boy.
- You didn't have a roast beef po' boy
so you can't say that!
- Etouffee's done so now alligator sausages.
I'm inspired by these, not inspired by these.
(laughing)
I'm gonna squeeze these out,
frying off my alligator sausage on a really high heat
because I want it to go really crispy and charred.
so when we went to Mr. B's we had these
most beautiful blackened, barbecue shrimp.
These hopefully will be really spicy and
beautiful to help mellow it out, I've a lovely
lime mayonnaise, which you'd never guess.
- There's a terrible tattoo on my cheese packet.
- [Barry] Oh shut up!
- You know how you know your eggs are good
but there's a red tractor on it?
The Matterhorn is the same thing.
- Is this is how you know that your tattoo is cheesy?
- Mate, at least it's not a trumpet.
- That is very true.
Oh man.
- It looks like a transfer that came out of a Kinder Egg.
- I'm going to take my amazing spicy oil that seeped
out of my alligator sauce and brush the
inside of my bread with it.
- I'm having French bread and what I'm gonna do is
once my bacon's done, is dip this in the hot bacon sauce-
- [Mike] What? You little friggin cheater!
Why are you copying me?
- [Barry] No, I'm not copying you.
- [Mike] You are!
- It was always my plan.
I made extra snacking bacon is that all right?
- Winner.
Everywhere we went to get a po' boy
we were asked do you like to have shredded
iceberg lettuce, slices of tomato, pickles, and mayonnaise.
So obviously we said yes and when it
comes to making my own po' boy obviously I'm gonna dress it.
[Upbeat Wrap Music]
- Whatever you do, don't leave your pickles
in a jar on the other side of kitchen
when you're trying to fight out forget them.
- I'm not gonna lie we've eaten quite
a few po' boys in the last few days but I am still looking
forward to three more.
Mike, I like the fact you've gone alligator,
I like the fact you've gone the etouffee.
Normally crawfish...
Mmm the alligator sausage is well spiced, it's heavy
but you've still got the kind of crispy baguette
and the fluffy inside that I expect from a
po' boy.
- Ah yes it's got a little bit sog-
- What a cross-section
- It sounds and looks great.
And one thing I would say the bread looks
so close to what we've been having
if not the same as we've been having since we've been here.
That kind of really fluffy crusty but not shiny crusty,
different sort of crust.
The slaw gives a nice crunch in the sandwich.
The cabbage, the green and the red cabbage.
I would say the prawn is exceptional.
If I'm honest, I'm not sure I wanted watermelon-
(laughing)
In that, until you eat it.
- It works.
- But it is really fruity and refreshing
because of the tang and the spice and the hot sauce and
the blackened and Cajun spice thing is actually bang on.
Very good again.
- I've got the giggles.
- I mean look at it, that can't win, look at it.
- It's the most classic to what we've had but
with a couple of twists and the root beer's
really nice because it has a sweetness.
Surf'n'turf normally it's surf or
turf in the po' boys we've seen,
I think Mike, yours celebrates the region better,
Barry I think yours celebrates color and texture and aroma,
and Jamie I think yours celebrates where po' boys started
and therefore the alligator etouffee and boudin po' boy.
Even though it's the least close on bread,
it is the best all round po' boy
because of the inspiration we've had these last couple days.
- Honestly I wasn't expecting that.
- Well done you!
- I wasn't until I ate it, if I'm honest.
I love the stories behind them all.
- Yeah absolutely loved it.
Well done everyone.
- We've had an unbelievable time in New Orleans
and we know we're incredibly lucky to be able
to do this so on these game changers trips
we like to find people who are doing amazing things
in their local community around food so Ebers and I
went and found some people who are quite literally
passing it on.
Cafe Reconcile is a nonprofit daytime
restaurant serving Southern staples
cooked by at-risk youth that receive job
training as part of an eight-week program.
- We take them in and generally we
try to take in about 20 kids per class.
We do six cohorts a year and we do
typical restaurant stuff there's pantry,
a hot line, a fryer, service, bus runners, hosts,
we teach them how to talk to the customers,
five steps of service we teach them how to read recipes
even we are teaching them skills but the main
concept is that let them work with those soft skills,
when they're mad, how to work well with others,
how to be on time, that's the things we are pushing for.
- Anybody can teach them how to hold the tray,
anybody can teach them how to cut an onion
but those other skills to where you gotta sometimes
bite your tongue you have to be able to work
a shift with anybody.
You know we have what we call
the eight habits of success.
If any human being could do all those eight habits
every day, they would be successful but
that's how we train them.
It's a level of self-confidence that I see them building
a level of maturity, it's just so much fun!
Restaurant business is fun.
- We know we can't reach them all but if we reach
one of them it can affect the communities
and so on and so on, generations down the line.
So we're trying to change generations,
not just that individual kid we're trying to
impact their families later on in life.
- [Host] New Orleans is truly a one-off and
there's nowhere like it in the world.
It's the only place where you can be
a swamp tour guide by day and jazz bassist by night.
- You know New Orleans is the only place where you can
go kayaking in a swamp, get out into wilderness
and then have a beer and see live local jazz.
I mean I've been all over a lot of the
country and I can't say anywhere else
where you can get that true cultural
experience mixed with the outdoors it's
kind of like a secret little place.
I mean I haven't been anywhere else that
has that to offer so that's why I love
it so much.
(upbeat music)
- [Woman] Ah Ben-
(laughing)
- Oh Ben!
Dirty air burns-
Hey can you keep that in-
Oh Ben!