(egg cracking)
(sizzling)
- Hello, and welcome to SORTEDfood.
Today we're making burgers,
but what happens when you give a trained chef
a limited budget of two pound 50 a portion
and let an absolute normal wreak havoc
with an unlimited budget?
So before we start,
let's talk ingredients.
Let's go big first.
Jay?
- Well, I decided to put our YouTube money
to really good use.
I have Tomahawk steak.
I have beef short rib.
I have bone marrow.
Combined, that's going to create the beefiest,
most delicious burger imaginable.
Altogether, this comes out around
27 pounds, 50 per burger.
- Ooh.
- I mean, if anything, Jay,
you've actually just added the pressure on,
'cause you should not,
you cannot-
- [Mike] You can't mess this up.
- Please don't mess this up.
- How are you responding to that, Ebbers?
- Well, my challenge is to do four burgers for a tenner,
so it's minced beef based,
but then I've picked other ingredients
that are affordable and that I can use in multiple places.
I'm gonna make a slaw,
caramelized onion,
going to make my own mayonnaise,
some crispy chickpeas.
And I'm using white bread,
but that's not going to stop
its adding flavor and texture to every element.
- It already sounds fascinating.
So in three, two, one,
burger me senseless.
- What?
(laughing)
I'm starting with my burger buns.
They're milk buns.
Essentially everything is going into a mixer.
Mix it up for five minutes into a warm place to rest.
One of the most important parts of this is my milk,
otherwise they wouldn't be milk buns.
The milk has to be a very specific temperature.
Got it in a SousVide machine.
My milk's here 30 degrees.
This will cause the yeast to activate at the right rate.
See, I'm not just bringing money.
I'm bringing skills.
- I am just a fellow normal,
but buns,
I thought four or five hours,
and we haven't got that.
- No, I'm cheating a little bit,
so that I can get the buns done completely
within the time limit.
Yeast needs a few things.
Time, food, temperature.
We don't have time,
so we've increased the temperature of the milk, 30 degrees.
That's why that was important,
and we've added more sugar,
and we've added more yeast.
So actually it needs less proving time,
and if I'm lucky,
I will have time to toast the buns
before constructing the burger.
- He actually sounds like he knows what he's talking about.
- Well he understands why,
what the yeast is doing,
and what things to change,
so if it works and they are actually good buns in the time,
then even though I am competing against you,
I'm also willing to award you
a basic bread badge.
- Come on.
- [Ben] You understand it.
You've explained it.
You've also now got to deliver on that.
- So over the course of this year, Ben,
the chef is testing the normals,
myself, Barry, and Jamie,
to the ultimate chef skills challenge,
where we're just testing our kitchen skills
and how much progress we've made
over the course of doing all of this nonsense online.
Here's the leaderboard as it stands.
- Time is money,
so in my budget recipe,
I'm going to make some caramelized onions,
and the cheat is to get the onion started
frying off in some oil,
red onion sliced up,
but then I'm going to add bicarb,
and what that does is increase the pH of the mixture.
It kind of helps all of the cellular structure
of the onions to burst,
and as a result,
leak out more of their juices,
and they caramelize a lot quicker.
A little bit of science,
but a little bit of bicarb speeds up caramelized onions.
- I'm going to mince all of my steak together
to create a really fat, heavy burger.
We could have just got a ribeye,
but where's the fun in that?
We got ribeye on the bone.
I'm going to slice this.
I'm going to slice the short rib,
spoon out the marrow,
put it onto a tray,
into a freezer for 10 minutes.
- Jamie's fashioning himself the ultimate lollipop.
- Could probably cook that off
whilst everything else is cooking, I reckon.
Mike, this ribeye is slicing like butter.
- I can see.
- And I haven't even cooked it yet.
Look at that!
- Whilst the onions caramelize,
cheat and hack number two,
drain a tin of chickpeas.
Now chickpeas just like 60 P a tin, right?
But don't throw away the liquid,
'cause I can't afford an egg yolk to make mayonnaise.
The aquafaba,
the liquid in the tin,
will do just that.
So add aquafaba, mustard, garlic,
smoked paprika, oil, salt, and pepper
into a container and then blend with an immersion blender.
Lift up through,
and we'll make mayonnaise that's even cheaper,
because it doesn't need the cost of the egg.
Now the onions have reduced right down to almost a mush.
We're going to caramelize around them.
So brown sugar and vinegar,
but I'm going to take the vinegar from the jar of pickles
that I'm going to use later.
One, it's already seasoned
with mustard seeds and peppercorns and chili,
but also it's free,
and sometimes the bit that gets left behind the wasted,
so I'm going to use it in the onions.
- My dough has had 10 minutes of kneading in the machine.
I've put it into a lightly floured bowl
covered with cling film.
That's going to go into an airing cupboard
for 45 minutes to proof.
- So the chickpeas drained,
seasoned with smoked paprika, salt, and pepper,
onto a tray, slightly squished,
and then into an oven to crisp up.
It should take about 25, 30 minutes.
- So Ben is literally working with two pound 50 per portion.
We have given him some staple ingredients,
like salt, pepper, and oil.
- This is the bit where Ebbers and I are crossing over.
I too I'm making caramelized onions.
Two red onions into a pan,
finely sliced with some oil.
Let them reduce some juices,
let them cook down a little bit,
and then we're going to go in with some sugar
and some red wine vinegar,
but it's not just any red wine vinegar.
This is proper oak aged cask barrel red wine vinegar,
because I can.
(coughing)
- Are you okay?
- No.
I got vinegar steam in my eyes.
- Right, patty time.
So my burger patties are mince beef,
but I'm also adding into that cheese and butter.
And as it happens in this particular recipe,
it's the dairy I'm spending more on than the beef.
Mince beef is a naturally
very, very, very cheap cut of beef.
However, the dairy I think is really important.
So I've gone for a nice mature cheddar in slices,
which is actually a more expensive way per kilo to buy it.
But I can actually just buy the eight slices I need
rather than the block.
So lots of fat, lots of flavor.
Well seasoned.
It's still gonna be a delicious patty.
- [Mike] Oh, I can't wait to try that.
- Burger is done.
- [Mike] Whoa.
- So the important thing here,
as I'm grinding this,
is that I'm putting bits of each type of meat
and the bone marrow in together.
As it's mincing it,
you're getting all of the different bits in one bite.
- Nice.
- And that, boys, is my beef.
- That bowl right there is what?
50 quid's worth?
- At least, yeah.
- Ebbers, you're not serving fries with your dish, are you?
But you're still chipping away at Jamie?
- [Ben] No, I'm going for slaw and chickpeas.
Potatoes are also very affordable.
I absolutely could have done chips.
It just felt a bit obvious.
Using store cupboard staples and aquafaba,
practically free mayonnaise.
Now don't overdo the mayonnaise in the first step,
because as this mixes,
and then we're going to season it heavily,
lots of moisture will come out of those vegetables,
and you end up with a wonderful creamy slaw.
- I'm not making smash burgers.
I'm actually going to form them,
but I'm not going to over mix this.
I put so much money and effort into grinding the right meat.
I don't want to overwork it at this stage,
so that when it cooks,
it remains incredibly tender and not bouncy.
You'll notice that picking those patties up,
it's quite difficult.
It's because they're falling apart.
I want to keep them that way,
because they're going to be super, super tender
when you eat them later.
- I am going to be eating later,
because through nothing more than a process of deduction,
I am judging this.
If you like me were wondering,
hang on, he hasn't mentioned his wine course
or his herb garden yet.
- What I did last night was go and pick some tarragon,
some sage, and some parsley,
and these are all free.
- So you didn't even buy the seeds?
- Because I don't know if you've known,
this is the end of June,
but in June we've had a lot of sunshine and a lot of rain,
and they're both free.
And what's happened is kind of like this amount of parsley
became this amount of parsley,
so all of this stuff is free.
So I'm just going to add this into the slaw now
to give you that extra je ne sais quoi.
If you haven't got fresh herbs,
then we know it tastes good anyway.
- Having dried them out nicely,
we're not going to crisp them up with a little bit of oil.
- [Mike] Have those been resting?
- It's been proving.
It's increased in size.
Get your fingers out of my dough!
- Now it's got an Ebbers dig in it.
- It's going onto a lightly floured surface.
I'm just going to pat it out into a disk,
cut it into four.
That's my four buns.
I then need to shape my buns.
I'm nervous about that bit.
And then they're going to have to rest again
before going into the oven.
- [Mike] Nice technique, Spaff.
- So essentially what I'm doing
is trying to create as tight a top as possible.
Tuck and roll, tuck and roll, tuck and roll.
And that's going to essentially mean that they prove
in the right direction.
- That's quite mesmerizing, Spaff.
- Egg wash, sesame seeds, rest.
Final finishing touch for my rolls,
a little bit of flour.
I'm going to cover these up.
I'm going to chuck them back into our airing cupboard,
Stroke Recording Studio,
for about half an hour
whilst I crank the oven up to cook them.
- As Neil Perry says,
sweaty business.
- I'm working on my bread too.
I'm toasting one side to get a nice golden brown
in a little bit of butter.
- I'm going to make a mayonnaise from scratch,
with the addition of truffle paste,
because cash, cash, money.
(intense music)
- You've done a Barry.
At this rate,
you might gain your bread badge,
but you might be losing your sauce badge,
mayonnaise edition.
The method's fine.
The recipe's fine.
I imagine either oil went into quick,
or not enough volume to catch in that machine.
And therefore you'd been better doing it by hand.
- Do I hear the faint bird,
slowly getting louder sound of a retraction?
- Comment down below,
should he have that badge rescinded?
- For speed,
I decided to make my mayonnaise in a mini chopper,
and it didn't emulsify properly.
So I've had to start with a brand new egg yolk,
and then see if I can pull it back from the brink.
And I think I might have just saved it.
Well now I've got two egg yolks in there,
so I feel like I'm going to need some more oil
to balance it back out again.
- Well done.
I was worried that you were going to thinking
of getting away with that.
- Finally, a little bit of truffle paste.
(rock music)
My buns have rested for another half an hour.
They've doubled in size.
They're going to go into an oven for 12 to 15 minutes
to cook through.
They'll cool on a wire rack,
and in the meantime,
I can get everything ready to construct my burgers
and cook my patties.
I just chucked a cup full of water
into the oven with my buns.
It's going to help them steam,
make my buns even more moist and delicious
than they already would have been.
Oh yeah, heh.
- Boys, you have 10 minutes bang on remaining.
It's go time.
- In the spirit of sharing,
you know how wonderful your buns were with your egg wash?
- [Jay] Yes.
- I didn't want to see you throw the rest of it away.
- [Jay] No.
- [Ben] So could I use it?
- Yes.
- Free egg.
- At this stage, is that the bit that's going to save him?
- Six minutes remaining.
(intense rock music)
- Bit of water into the pan.
Lid on.
That's going to steam the cheese,
get that all melty.
The bun still needs to go onto the grill,
and then it's all about construction, baby.
- One minute remaining.
(intense rock music)
10 seconds remaining.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Step away from your burgers.
- That's epic!
(laughing)
- I hope that's good enough.
(laughing)
(victorious music)
- Wow, let's eat these as quick as possible.
Ebbers, talk us through your dish.
- We'll divide it up,
but it's a beef patty melt
with lots of tips and tricks and hacks,
plus homemade slaw plus crispy chickpeas.
Just listen.
(crunching)
Got a cheeky stolen egg in that.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- I'm genuinely shocked at how good that patty tastes.
- Yeah.
- I know it's laced with cheese and butter,
but I was only expecting it to go so far.
- It takes on a completely different flavor to the beef,
because of that butter.
I think the crispy chickpeas are a really nice touch.
- I don't think there's much beyond
taking care of each step,
so brown the butter.
Get a good sear and seasoning into the patties.
Remember the pickle juice?
It went into the onion jam
and into the slaw,
so you're using that seasoning all across.
The aquafaba from the tin chickpeas and the chickpeas.
It's kind of like they're
killing two birds with one stone.
- Let's talk about yours.
I mean, this is a monstrosity
in the most positive sense of the word.
- As you let go of that bun,
and it just released back up into that perfect dome.
I'm really impressed with the bread.
- That bread is good.
- Cheers. - Cheers.
- I'm going to say it.
You've got a bread badge.
- Yeah, a hundred percent.
That bread is outstanding.
- So when you start to break it down into flavors,
yes, it's beefy,
but it's also got the sweet onion.
You've got the smoky ham.
You've got the unbelievable richness of duck egg yolk
before you even get to the beef.
I've done the easy bit,
because there's no denying
that was worthy of a basic bread badge.
- Yeah, where do you go from there?
- I don't know.
I'm in a real quandary,
because you spent so much money at it.
This was so smart,
and I wasn't expecting it to taste as good
as I thought it looked.
I'll be honest.
- Thanks.
- But you know, that's completely down to your limitations.
Not as a chef.
(laughing)
I think the beef a hundred percent makes difference,
spending that money.
It tastes incredible.
Duck egg, no difference for me to a normal egg.
- It's richness on top of richness.
- Truffle mayo and smoked ham,
you get smoke,
you get truffle.
Big impact on the overall burger.
But for me, the star of the show is that bun,
and it was free to make pretty much.
- It was cheapest thing in there.
- I mean, I'm going to call it.
Best burger of the day.
Jay, well done.
You win the burger battle.
- [Jay] The chances are,
I will never make that burger again.
- [Mike] No.
- But I will definitely be using elements
from that burger to improve what I do on a weekly basis.
- Repeat the buns though,
'cause they are excellent
and will elevate any barbecue you ever go to.
Good job, Jay.
- What a great job we have.
Hopefully you guys got some value out of that,
and do you think I made the right decision?
Comment down below.
- And let us know what dish theme should we tackle next,
big budget, little budget.
- Chef, normal.
Let's always keep the normal over on their side.
And the final reminder,
we're calling last orders on our annual
Meal Packs membership and free cookbook offer,
so grab it while you can,
as it ends on the 31st of July.
Blooper time.
- Should we do some grinding?
- Yes.
- Cool, and then we can mince my beef if you want.
- [Mike] Sure.
(laughing)