(upbeat music)
- Hello everyone. Welcome to the channel.
We are Sorted Food.
- Today, it's all about beef Wellington.
- But, what can our chef Ben achieve
with just £2.50 per portion
when compared to our normal home cook, Mike,
with an unlimited budget?
(upbeat music)
- Chef, normal.
Ready, steady,
- [Both] Welly!
(high intensity music)
- Straight in with the meat, right?
You are not hanging about.
Mike has a cut of beef. What have you gone for?
- So, this is beef fillet. This long.
This is a tiny bit of the beef fillet.
It's in the ribcage of the cow
so it's not worked at all, super tender,
doesn't have a huge amount of flavour.
So I am frying or searing the edges off
in beef dripping to get loads of flavour into it,
but also to get a nice browning on each side
because browning equals flavour.
- I like that. So, naturally,
this is a very lean cut of beef,
doesn't have much fat in it at all,
so I'm gonna cook it in beef fat.
- And, Ebbers, what cut of beef have you gone for?
- Yeah, how are you doing this in under 10 quid?
- So I'm taking mince beef, pork sausages
that are nicely seasoned but herby out of their skins,
a tablespoon of gravy granules, and salt and pepper.
- Sorry.
- Pork sausages?
- So, before that, mince meat then pork sausages?
- Are you making what can be described accurately
as a beef Wellington?
- A classic would be wrapped in Parma Ham.
I'm just putting the pork inside,
and absolutely I'm gonna have
to resort to minced beef to get my welly
because you're not gonna buy fillet beef
for any less than 25, 30 quid at the very lowest end,
and a good one will set you back 40.
- There may be some out there.
You might say this falls into more of
a sausage roll category.
- I'm smooshing it all together,
rolling it into a sausage
in a double layer of cling film,
and popping it into the freezer to set up
while I do everything else.
- Rolling it into a what, Ebbers, was that? Sorry.
- A sausage shape.
Gonna roll it into a beef fillet shape.
- Well done.
- Seared. Now we're gonna chill it.
Nearly lost it, now we're gonna chill it right down.
- Quick question for you, Mike.
How much was that beef fillet?
- That was £40.
- So you've just four times Ben's whole budget
with just the beef?
- I haven't even got started, mate.
So, now I'm onto my duxelles.
Basically, a delicious mushroomy paste.
That's going to go on the inside of homemade crêpes,
which are wrapped around Parma Ham,
which is wrapped around my beef fillet.
Then, all of that gets wrapped in pastry.
- Sometimes I forget everything that goes into a welly and
- It's silly.
- Whenever I remember it or get told,
- Yep.
- I fall back in love.
- So into the same pan, loads of beef dripping.
I've added butter. Now frying off some garlic,
then I'll add in all my mushrooms, herbs,
seasoning, and I'll fry it off
to try and get rid of a load of that moisture
because the soggy duxelles makes for a soggy Wellington.
- I am also making my duxelles,
starting by building up flavours.
So, I'm gonna go in with four rashers of bacon,
quite deliberately.
I'm holding the other back for later,
and then, once that's golden and crispy in a pan,
which can't really happen until all the water
and moisture from the bacon evaporates off,
then I'm gonna go in with onion and half a bulb of garlic.
Again, lots of garlic.
I'm gonna cook it out.
- It appears to me that this is probably
the biggest budget challenge that you've taken on.
Do you have a series of top tips to keep the cost down?
- I think, in this instance,
what would be lovely is to take some hard herbs,
some rosemary or some thyme.
Now, if you grow it at home it's basically free.
- Here we go.
- Alternatively.
- Whoa, whoa, whoa.
- I'm not going to today
because I've been told off about it before but,
I'm telling you, it's practically free if you grow it,
but that is also why I picked up herby sausages,
because they're already seasoned
and have some herbs in them.
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- Whilst my mushrooms are cooking out,
I am making my crêpes, and I am using duck eggs
because richness of flavour but,
also, I've got money to burn, so.
- A duck egg pancake.
- Yep.
- Now this is a big old bowl of mushrooms,
but they are the wonky mushrooms.
They're all a bit funny in shape and size,
all a bit different, a bit irregular.
We want to add all of that in,
cook them right down, and remove all the moisture.
So, in this instance, perfect.
- Boys, I know what you're thinking
and of course I'm going to add Armagnac
to my mushroom mix and then set it on fire.
- Your face will be right over that.
- £9 worth of truffles.
One, two, three.
- Whilst you're adding £9 worth of truffle in,
I'm adding 60 pence worth of chicken liver.
- Oh my, and now what?
- Now, chicken liver parfait.
So, I'm using a fiver's worth of it.
Oh, look who it is.
- Eight times more expensive than my chicken livers.
- Eight times less effort.
The point I guess I'm trying to make is,
can I make up for lack of ability
by throwing money at the problem or,
through smartness, experience, technique,
can you get pretty much there?
I mean that, that's what we're gonna discover today.
Hello.
That, whoa.
That's why you put truffle in it.
This now goes onto a pre-chilled baking tray.
I'm gonna chill it right down.
- I thought we were making crêpes,
not American-style pancakes.
- What are you doing there?
- What, it's a burger, isn't it?
- Crêpes are super cheap and affordable anyway but,
because of the rules, for me to actually buy
a whole bag of flour and a whole half dozen
of eggs and whole pints of milk,
it works out too expensive.
So, I'm gonna use bread.
What you want it to do is absorb the moisture
from the beef and the duxelles
to stop the pastry going soggy.
White bread, crusts cut off and rolled out,
will do the same job.
- Mike, can I try a bit of your quiche.
- What is that?
- I'll tell you what it is, Baz.
It's the, uh, duck eggs.
They just react differently.
- It must be the duck eggs, yeah.
- Yes.
- What is required for a beef Wellington
is that golden puff pastry on the outside,
so I'm spending 10% of my budget on the puff pastry.
You can buy very, very delicious puff pastry
full of butter, or you can buy the cheapest
of versions which is actually made with oil.
That's obviously what I'm going for in this battle.
- This is from Pick the Premium, isn't it?
- The normal stuff is great for everyday cooking,
but if you wanna go all out, buy this.
It is expensive. It's £5 for,
it's £5 for one roll. Because it's all butter,
I've gotta work quick.
So, more jeopardy, I can't even make a crêpe.
How am I supposed to roll a Wellington?
- Whew, that is some posh-looking mustard.
- It's one of those ingredients that's
on the pricier side of life, but it also,
in saying that, tastes incredible.
- I'm also going mustard.
I'm just gonna give a little scratching
on the bread before the duxelles
and then met the wellie.
- So I've got prosciutto
and I'm just going to roll my wellie in it.
- I'm gonna roll quickly now while my beef is cold.
So, pastry, bread, and duxelles over,
and so the bread seals.
That's the plan.
- It's fair to say Ebbers has caught my attention.
I'm invested in this now.
- I'm invested because I don't know to do this next bit,
so we'll see how he's done.
- Go on mate.
- No! Come back!
- Tense, isn't it?
- Really tense.
- There we go. Beef's in.
- This is the bit that never makes any sense.
- If that's not sealed correctly, if it falls apart.
- Yeah.
- It holds so many different things.
- It will still be delicious.
- Wellie egg washed, preheated tray, into the oven.
- I'm a little confused because
your Wellington's in the oven,
but you're still cooking.
- So I think if we're talking like excellent jus and gravy,
it's all about roasting off beef bones,
dark colour, lots of vegetables, vegetable scraps,
all cooked down along with water to make a stock
which is then reduced.
Perhaps some wine, some enrichment.
We haven't got any of that on my side of the kitchen,
so we're getting some of the colour
from the fat and the sausages,
then I'm gonna add in loads of garlic,
a tin of oxtail soup,
- [Both] Oxtail soup?
- And gravy.
- For my jus, I am using 500 grammes of beef shin.
I am going to fry that off in butter
and get loads of lovely colour on it,
then I'm going to add in mushroom shallots,
black peppercorns, onions, stock, pork, red wine.
- Sorry, you're just cooking beef shin for flavour?
Not actually the beef.
- That's what restaurants do.
They'll use the beef shin in other dishes,
but that is essentially what a jus is.
- As gravys go, I've never seen anything like it.
- No.
- Where are you gonna put those carrots, Ebbers?
- Look, on this side of the kitchen I had money to spare,
so I've also spent it on a cabbage, some carrots.
I've used the leftover bacon to start off.
- Sounds like a bacon coleslaw.
- Hot bacon coleslaw
- Hot bacon, it is basically hot bacon coleslaw.
- Yeah, but this is just looking perfect.
This is ridiculous today.
Once the shallots have softened in with my mushrooms,
port and red wine, bring out to the boil,
then I'm gonna reduce that by three quarters
before adding in this beef stock
which cost £12.50 for this.
- Where are you shopping?
- It's excellent beef stock,
and I would never ever be able to use something
like this until now.
- Just some more cabbage Ben.
- So I've got some diced bacon cooking off in veg oil,
then in with loads of carrot once that's crispy
so the carrot begins to soften.
While it's softening, I'm slicing cabbage.
The cabbage then goes in there.
It looks like a lot but it will all wilt down,
especially if I can get a lid on it.
- Herbs and then the beef stock.
- This better be the best gravy that I've ever tasted.
- Yeah. We've never ever made anything like this
in the show before.
- This now gets reduced by three quarters again,
and then I strain it. Jus.
- [Both] Jus.
- So my beef and pork and chicken Wellington
does need to go up to sort of 70 degrees ish
to cook all the way through, including the very centre.
- Whereas for my Wellington,
I've gotta cook it to 35 degrees c,
then I'm gonna whip it out the oven
and it's basically gonna cook in its residual
temperature up to 57.
- Well okay, but the key there is,
still don't overcook it.
- Don't overcook it. You should still-
- Undercook it and let it cook out the rest
outside the oven.
- Yeah.
- Waste the not one, not over here.
I've also got a first course that I'm throwing
into my budget. Made some nice toast to go
with the rest of the mushroom and chicken liver pâté.
- The jus has now reduced so I'm gonna strain that,
Stick it in a lovely little bowl.
- Meanwhile, the Wellington is just coming up
to temperature
- Whereas I'm just gonna serve mine up.
- Oh, Ebbers, that's a very crisp-looking bottom.
- Amazing.
- Oh my gosh.
- Ebbers.
- So you'll easily get four like that,
plus the two off-cuts with plenty more cabbage
and the gravy that, I'd be very happy
with those bits as well.
- That is ridiculous.
- Hot coleslaw.
- You are so uncouth, the lot of you,
Unlike your tough beef, this is lovely.
- Oh shade.
- Fighting Ebbers has come out now.
- If we go into this to make you guys at home
realise how precious this is, in total,
what has this cost you to make?
- Over £110.
- If you have screwed this, mate.
- That's why I was so nervous earlier,
couldn't even flip a pancake.
- You can't sneak a peek.
You gotta open it up to camera.
- One, two.
I think it's perfect.
- I think it's really, really good, mate.
- It is rosy.
- Right? Should we taste them?
(upbeat music)
- You did it.
- Some mighty fine looking wellies.
- You did it in under-budget and you did it.
- He didn't care about budget, but nailed it.
- Right eat, please.
- Yeah.
- We just gotta dig into Mike's, right?
- Yeah, alright.
- We have our jus.
- You want me to jus now?
- Yeah, yeah. Jus.
- Lovely.
- Oh, yes.
- Glossy. Shiny.
- Let me give you a-
- Cheers.
- [All] Cheers.
- £110.
- That is delicious.
- Mate, you've done a very, very good job there.
- This seems really obvious,
but it tastes expensive.
- Decadent.
- I am happy with that. I didn't mess it up,
and that was my sole aim for today.
- The beef is incredibly tender with that but,
as you pointed out right at the beginning,
it doesn't have loads of flavour.
So, the fact that the flavour actually comes
from the duxelles and from that jus,
which is extraordinary.
Altogether, that works brilliantly.
- Thanks boys.
- Right, nicely done.
- Now I'm super excited for this.
- Sets the bar quite high for this one,
£2.50 a portion.
Um, dig in.
- Go on boys, don't put it in my jus,
otherwise he'll get extra points.
- Have some of my sausage sauce.
- Oh yeah.
- Want to be sick?
- And don't forget the cabbage side dish.
- It looks like a massive sausage roll,
but it has a duxelles.
It looks like a Wellington.
It holds a lot better and looks crispier than mine.
I'm so intrigued.
- [All] Cheers.
- I spent £9 on my chicken liver parfait
and it doesn't taste as much as that does.
- No.
- That is amazing.
- That has a completely different flavour profile
to Mike's, but it's just as delicious
in a different way.
- It got such a satisfying texture.
- Yeah.
You brought a restaurant-quality meal to the table.
- For £110.
- I think by bringing two plates to the table,
one of which is 11 times the price of the other,
we've already won, because you can prove
what you can do at both ends of the scale,
but you do have to pick someone.
- Mike's Wellington is 11 times more expensive than Ebbers'.
- Oh no.
- The question is,
is Mike's Wellington 11 times better?
- Right. Okay.
- I think you say, I think we can say,
it is a tastier dish, but it's not 11 times better.
I'm sorry, mate.
- It's not.
- No, I completely agree.
- I think Ebbers has done it.
- Well done.
- It's that, that, that bread trick was genius.
- Well, over to you all.
What did you think of Ben's cheffy hacks and tips?
Share thoughts and opinions below.
- And if you want more money-saving,
food waste reducing tips that still gets dinner
on the table every single day,
then you'll want to check out our Sidekick app.
Plus, it's free for a whole 30 days.
What are you waiting for?
Get involved. Link's downstairs.
(upbeat music)
(romantic music)
(plate shatters)
(fire crackling)
(shouting)
- No! I bottled it halfway through.
I can't. Oh no.
- It's all in the wrist.
- I can't do it.
- Confidence.
- I bottled it. I bottled it.
No, I can't do it!
- Up and down.
- No, I can't do it! I can't do it.
- Mike, come on! Come on, one more time.
- Come on!
- One more time.
- Hey!
- Third time's a dream, hey?