We broke 4 MORE fundamental cooking rules to see what happened | Sorted Food
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- Опубликовано: 18 май 2024
- It's time to shake things up so today we are testing whether certain cooking rules HAVE to be followed... or if they can be broken?!
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you know what i kinda miss from the old days...the bloopers... if its not much to ask,perhaps once a month,a small video with the funniest bloopers/cuts that did not make it, yk when the fridge cam was a thing etc. just for the laughs.
I was thinking the same thing. Bloopers were so good!!!
@@kars010 and fridge cam 😢 miss that
It would probably be an easier video to make than a normal one too?
Butt first!
@@bobert6259 exactly, we dont need a fancy edit, just a intro stating "bloopers" and just the cuts that didnt make it they put on the timeline with the software they use ^^
Haha, James gently taking Mike's hand after Mike accidentally grabbed James'. Nobody really acknowledged it which is so funny and awkward.
Aw. Mike and James have always been at ease with their tactile bro-mance... It's genuine friendships like this that are the reason we all love Sorted. X
I noticed it! And I find it lovely and wholesome
17:37
I did see it and I think it’s so cute!
@@Shelsightyou could say that they’re the best of friends….
Mike had some incredible tasting notes.
The cupcakes tasted like cupcakes.
The steak tasted like steak.
And the wine tasted like wine.
Glad to see all his years at Sorted really enhanced his food vocabulary.
17:37 goodness James is such a beautiful being. Him leading mikes hand to the table is just so cozy.
They always had this like bromance chemistry. Since I started watching years ago, I always loved that sorted guys are friends, so confident with each other that they can hug/be touchy and bicker in the next minute
Jamie appearing when the steaks come out. Lol
Standard 😆
Like a dog whistle ! lol.
And I bet he wasn't far out of camera range waiting to self taste the steak results!
He's the Steak Man ™️
Rumor has it if you stand in the bathroom with no light on at night and say "steak steak steak" he will appear in the mirror
Love seeing James again!
Ahhhh so do we! 🫶
Is he back-back?!
"Where's the DISH!"
And his guns
@@komalthecoolk Exactly what I was thinking. When did those get here?
JAMES!!!!! We missed you!!!
James always had the prefect calm energy to balance out this group of lovable muppets😁.
Regarding the wine or cooking with any spirit, the rule I was taught and always stick to is that if you wouldn't drink it, don't cook with it. Any of the off flavors you don't like in the alcohol won't disappear in the cooking, they'll just mix with other flavors and bring the whole dish down.
I've found this true in beer for stews/batters, wine in savory sauces, & hard spirits in sweet sauces (such as whiskey caramels).
Same. I don't put the fancy schmancy stuff in food, but never put anything in I wouldn't drink on its own.
Ah but I don't drink any beers, but mixed into a stew I do like it. There are flavours that are just too intense on their own but that are fine combined, aren't there?
The idea that the flavour of the wine doesn't matter is crazy. Would you say that for all the other ingredients as well?
I swear by box wine for cooking. It's not the best but it's perfectly drinkable, costs about £12 from Aldi for the equivalent of 3 bottles and means you don't need to worry about having partial bottles of wine around. I just keep one box of red and one of white next to each other in the cupboard.
@@ThreadBombyes definitely. I don't like to eat a brick of stock cubes, but enjoy it as a part of a soup.
As a kid, my mum and I would bake together quite often. I was a clumsy, accident prone baby so I was barely allowed to use the electric whisk or go near the oven. I was, however, allowed to sieve the dry ingredients. So I always sieve dry ingredients to this day, because its a core childhood memory.
Add it as a step if you want to give your kids something to do to help in the kitchen 😂
Love this comment! It’s definitely a great task to give kids to get them involved with the baking 😆
I used to help my mom sift the flour too! In one of those squeezy-handle sifting doohickeys!
Am loving seeing James back in videos. Also loving this concept, seeing if rules that have been passed down families for generations are actually worth listening to and doing or if we can ignore them.
So glad you enjoy this type of video! We love experimenting like this and making them 😁
I was watching a thing about cooking traditions and rules. It turned out that MANY rules people believed as gospel were originally made only for practical reasons and any positive effect on the dish was pure happenstance and frequently nonexistent. One woman talked about how her family always cut the roast in half, she was very passionate about how her grandmother was a fantastic cook, yada yada yada, until she actually ASKED her grandmother... who said, "Nah, the oven was just too small." For the roast, it made no difference, but if you were spatchcocking a turkey for the same reason, it would.
@@SortedFoodif you do more of this I’d be keen for James to stay on, I think he’s the perfect one of the three chefs for this type of discussion.
@@adde9506yeah, that's funny. I'm just someone who almost never follows recipes to a T, and sometimes I shock my mom with how I cook - still, usually the shock ends on a positive note, and my family now keeps saying I should go study to be a cook (am currently going through a life situation and at a loss for a new job option).
All in all, I've discovered that I've never followed several cooking rules and never had a problem with the results
I also definitely want to see Sorted make more of this type of video, but if you want to get your fix before that happens you should look into the Myth Munchers videos from Mythical Kitchen. Same concept, but most videos are focusing on one particular food (burger myths, steak myths, pasta myths, etc). They are definitely more chaotic than Sorted, but they're a good watch!
hi hi I’ve been professionally baking for the last decade and I’ll say that sifting isn’t always necessary. But it is definitely needed for recipes calling for baking soda! It clumps so badly and you’ll find big chunks throughout your baked goods if you don’t sift it!
😧
To fluff up evenly I assume? 🤔
Happy james is always a sight to see. The accidental hand grazing by Mike with James just pulling him into it was hilarious.
Mike and James cooking together! That's all I need to see to know this will be a great video.
Love to hear it! 🙌
Yes, the highlight was James putting Mikes hand back on the kitchentop 😂😍😂
@@ErnaB790 I hope Janice wasn't jealous. 🤣
I think the wine rule is not "don't cook with cheap wine" and more "cook wine that you would drink" it's not really a matter of better wine makes better food. It's that if you cook with grape flavored rubbing alcohol, it will be worse for your dish.
And I think there's a big difference in the usage of the wine. For a splash of wine in a ragu, I think the quality will make less of a difference to the overall dish than in a red wine jus for example. Where the wine is being cooked with a load of other flavours, the complexity and flavour profile of the wine is mostly lost, but where the wine is the "hero" of the dish, the flavour and quality of the wine is far more important
I think it’s also because if you use a glass of wine in your food, you have most of a bottle of wine left that you’re going to end up drinking. So by default you’ll end up cooking with a wine you would like drinking.
Doesn't matter if you'd have it on its own - the key thing is to know the flavor of what you're using.
I use cheapo box wine sometimes when I cook, and I know how to use it because I take a taste now and then.
@@erinhowett3630 yep. I drink a glass of two of wine and then plop the corked bottle right on my countertop to be used for cooking until it's gone.
@@grouch314 Agreed. While I'm not a fan of wine my first thought was how much is the wine contributing to the final dish. If it's just a bit of acid then the quality doesn't really matter, but if the wine is supposed to be a major component in the flavor of the dish then going for something a bit better quality makes sense.
An important note on the dry good sifting: I lived in Nigeria for a year and you always always always had to sift because of flour mites.
You would sift it straight from the store, get any mites and eggs out then store it airtight and it was fine for use.
The mites got in during production, and would only live long enough to lay eggs. Then they would die, and any flour they ruined would clump around them.
It was gross, but we had no other option aside from driving a long ways to buy flour imported from Europe for 3 or 4x the cost.
I'm from the UK, and I was told that sifting the flour was to make sure that there weren't weevils (bugs) in it...
Although I've only ever heard of someone finding a single one on one single occasion (and I've worked in catering)
@martyclakson9226 probably a much lower standard of food production combined with rampant corruption led to the bugs getting in in Nigeria.
Yeah, there's two reasons flour is sifted. Here in the US, because our flour is usually bought well-cleaned, many people think you have to sift flour to get the clumps out, but this is only necessary for very few baking things. However, sifting flour to clean it from bugs and mites is a completely different thing.
@@Tyranzor64 With better manufacturing, here in the US we don't get bugs in our flour when we buy it, but it's still possible to get them after you buy it. My family keeps the flour in the freezer to prevent bugs from getting in it. Never once had a bug in our flour due to that.
That's all to say that bugs in flour is a common thing around the world afaik and isn't specific to Nigeria, I'm sure.
@@christianseibold3369 I have had so many "floury" goods magically sprout mites that I now rest most dry goods like that in the freezer for a few days to kill the eggs. That and air tight containers for everything.
Not Jaime waltzing in when there’s steak involved 🤣🤣
I love how just the mention of steaks summons Jamie.
You know it! That man can sniff out a steak over a mile away 😆
Barry trying to contain Jamie like an excited dog i'm crying
😂
James is the yang rebel to Ben's obey the rules Yin. Together they make a great team. Honestly great that you have multiple personalities on set that complement each other so well
I think the only time sifting flour needs to be followed is when the recipe states (for example): 1 cup sifted flour. As Mike stated, the amount of flour in a sifted cup is less than a cup of unsifted flour. And it’s really nice to see James in the Sorted kitchen again.
And that's why you should measure your baking ingredients by weight, not by volume.
@@YaaLFH Unfortunately, here in the US adding weights to recipes is a relatively modern thing. Most older recipes use volumetric measurements and were compiled by people who "followed the rules".
Every time I post something like this, it devolves into "Imperial Vs. Metric" for some reason.
For the record, we do NOT use "Imperial Measurements". We use "US Standard" measurements standardized (with metric equivalents) and codified into Federal Law over a century ago.
FWIW, anything we pick up at the store has both USS and Metric labels, as do our measuring utensils. It's the law, as Metric has been the federally approved system for commerce here for decades now.
BOTH systems have been taught in our public schools for decades now. Most folks can think in either system, as well as make rough mental conversions on the fly. (1 quart = 2 Pints = 1 Liter)
I'll sign off now and go back to my 16.9 Fluid Ounce (1.05 Pint) / 500 mL bottle of Pepsi, ignoring the 58g of carbs.
@@kevincrosby1760 From my experience talking to USA people, most of them can't think in metric or make conversions on the fly, unless they're engineers, doctors/pharmaceutists or drug dealers 🤣
@@YaaLFH I will admit that I frequently ask how some of the folks around me completed 13 years of public schooling.
That said, my formal training is in electronics repair, so understanding micro/mili/deci/centi/kilo was a job requirement.
Any reasonably intelligent and observant adult SHOULD have learned US Standard, Metric, and how to estimate and convert between the two before they ever left grade school/Primary school.
If nothing else, since my Teaspoon measuring spoon is labeled "1 tsp / 5 mL", is no reason that the equivalence would not have sunk in over the years. Ditto for the "1.05 PT / 500 mL" label on my Pepsi bottle or the fact that the speedometers in all of my vehicles show MPH an the outside of the dial and KPH on the inside. Not a really huge stretch to observe that 62 MPH also puts the needle at 100 KPH. Should be obvious at a glance that 1KPH would be .62 MPH by just moving the decimal 2 places to the left.
Then again, I've seen people think they are getting a deal when they see a sign that says "20 Cents each, or 5 for $1" and purchase 5 items rather than the 3 they needed. (20 Cents looks a lot like $.20)
There is truth in saying to a young political activist "You're going to start a revolution? You can't even start a lawnmower..."
@@YaaLFH FWIW, here is the whole story...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_customary_units
Every time James comes on his arms just get more... impressive...
Noticed it right as he said "in my day to day i cant actually use wine"
Why can’t he use wine in his day to day?
More james videos?! You guys are spoiling us! Thanks! Seeing james again has been wonderful🎉🎉🎉
More to come too! 😁
@@SortedFoodYAY🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
It's awesome to see how much confidence Mike has when hes got his buddy back with him. They had so much fun.
I’m happy to see James always. He has been missed.
Also that look on Jamie‘s face as he comes out for the steaks is priceless.
One of my favorite quotes that can be applied across many different parts of life are "cooking and working out are a lot alike- there's always gonna be people telling you that you're doing it wrong but as long as you achieve what you're aiming to do, the path you take doesn't really matter"
But if you do things wrong when working out you can cause significant harm to your body. I should know, my mother is a physiotherapist and the number of ppl who come to her clinic with ruined bodies from working out wrong is staggering
@@DimT670 "Doesn't really matter" is intended to cover the not hurting yourself or burning down your kitchen aspects.
17:40 James guides mike's hand back to the table while saying guidelines lol
Glad someone else caught that. 😂
Yeah what was that about? ;o
@@theshiftybloke4672I believe mike was about to put his hands there and James' hands were already there so he jumped back and James took his hand and put it there as if to reassure him it's okay without breaking stride in front of the camera.
@@theshiftybloke4672 because rules are mean't to be broken😏
@@senor.molina I don't ship I promise
Aww James 😊 it's good to see his smiling presence 😊
Loving the new ginger Chef, he sounds calming , even when he says "wheres the dish!" too... :D missing the fridge cam of the early times, and the bloopers. been a long time fan
Fridge cold steak is not an issue, just cook it low and slow as James indicated. You get the same result in the end, just check the internal temp with a probe.
If I'm cooking low and slow I'm not going to use a premium cut like a steak.
Lots of flipping on a more medium temp.
@@moxbroker Really what I meant :D
And it doesn't "come up to room temperature" after half an hour if it is a nice cut.
@@hfbdbsijenbdplenty of good cuts can be cooked perfectly via sous vide, which isn’t going to care what temperature it went into the bag at. That piece of steak in the video was way too thick to hit with a super hot pan, only needs the heat at the end to add a darker sear and crust if you like that
The sifting issue is really one of “It depends…”. What you’re making, how much you can work stuff to incorporate everything, it all matters for whether sifting is necessary or just maybe helpful. I would never make macarons without sifting, but because I bake GF I can work a cake batter forever to incorporate it without worrying about developing gluten.
Exactly.
For most recipies it does not matter, but for some it really does. From what I have seen the added air is the important part.
yes absolutely, and thank you! i paused the video and scrolled thru comments looking for this very answer. it really depends. and i hope nobody walks away thinking they never ever need to sift any dry ingredients, regardless of what they are making…
Exactly. Cupcake batter was a very bad choice for this "myth" busting.
I do not shift anymore when throwing into the meringue (French method).
I now usually shift, proccess them together (sugar + flour), re-shift and keep them on the side for incorporating.
Exactly - cupcakes are so fool proof that it was the worst choice for this.
Exactly. It matters more on the "what" you are sifting and how you are incorporating. Some products like cocoa powder or powdered sugar are known clumpers and can be very hard to get smooth if you're making something like a glaze and not sifting. However, I use a 2 lb/1Kilo bag of powdered sugar in my royal icing recipe and just dump the whole thing into the stand mixer bowl and have never had a clump. If using a stand mixer, clumps are less likely to be an issue, but you DO have to remember to scrape down the bowl (often more times than most people think).
James can break any rule he wants anytime
I find that sieving ingredients for cakes varies greatly on what you are baking. For a simple sponge it's not too necessary, but if you are working with something very light in texture, like a soufflé, then sieve.
That was fun to watch. I like seeing James again, but what really made me laugh was when Jamie turned up the moment the steak was mentioned...
The one rule for rice in my house is always wash the rice until the water runs clear to reduce the starchiness. So nice to see James appearing in multiple videos! This was another fun one! Great job, team!
I don't wash the rice. No need to with the brand I use. It just goes straight into the pot. And if I want to use it for some sort of fried rice, then about half an hour cool down period is enough.
FYI: if you are using enriched rice, it has already been thoroughly washed and the cloudy stuff you are washing off isn't starch, it's the extra vitamins and minerals you paid for.
@@adde9506 Oh really? Nice to know. I don't think it's enriched rice that I'm using but I haven't bothered checking. I shall do that from now on.
You don’t need to wash brown rice either because the bran protects the rice germ from grinding against each other to create the extra starch
@@ingetout Awesome; I don't typically make brown rice but we do sometimes have purple rice so, that is also nice to know.
Great video and so good to see James and Mike hanging out. Really like these chill videos. Thanks!
Interesting video. Love the concept. For #3: I've always heard the rule to only cook with wine that you'd drink, regardless of the price, because the flavor will concentrate. Also, I'm very happy to see James back in the kitchen 😊
When it comes to wine I've also always followed the rule if you don't enjoy drinking it, don't cook with it. The price varies so much with taste, I've had a cheap $15 bottle that taste amazing, and $50 plus bottle that I haven't enjoyed. I'll cook with what I enjoy and what flavours match the dish. Also Great video, always love seeing James.
I'm no wine snob. I'll get the single serve bottles when I want to use them for cooking. Works fine for me. I'm the only one who drinks wine and don't want to down a bottle over a weekend.
$15 isn't cheap, my favorite cheap wine is $4 :D
I love how Jamie heard steak and immediately came out. James has a great idea though, we need a video about cooking steak.
Back when I worked at a winery, we had a chef come in to consult on food and wine pairings. The advice he gave me was to never cook with anything you wouldn't drink, and that using the same wine in your food that you're drinking that night serves to sort of prime the palate for the flavor profile of the glass (and vice versa).
I don't use anything too pricey but a standard $20-30 bottle from one of the local wineries suits me well.
Meathead Goldwyn has a very interesting article (with graphs!) about how taking meat out of the fridge for less than, like, 2 hours really only changes the outside surface temperature unless it's quite thin (under 1 inch thick). And that time just increases with the size of the meat. So unless you're willing to let bacteria breed at unsafe temperatures for longer than is "safe", don't bother. Cooking technique is way more important.
Also, smoke adheres to cold surfaces better, so if you're cooking on a barbecue then you're actually better off with straight-from-fridge.
Sifting dry ingredients - I only do this for cocoa powder and confectioners sugar, if it's particularly clumpy. However, I usually whisk the dry ingredients together. AND I ALWAYS grind up baking soda & Baking powder in the palm of my hand before adding it. Nothing worse than a finding a little pebble of leavener in a cake!
Salting pasta water. Vinegar in poached egg water. Seasoning eggs before or after scrambling. Softened butter or melted butter in baking.
Unseasoned cooked pasta is genuinely disgusting 😂 rest are good ideas👍🏽
Yes those are good ones
I've NEVER noticed a difference with not salting pasta water
I've had dessert crusts go rock hard when using melted butter, but the recipe said softened.
Salting your pasta water makes a difference (those who don't notice likely don't add much salt). Vinegar actually does make a differnce and helps the whites set BUT it won't help save an old egg that the whites are really watery or runny. As for the butter.. It's situational. If you try to make classic southern biscuits with soft or melted butter you are going to have some very sad biscuits.
I’ve definitely missed seeing Mike and James together! Loved this video and definitely learnt a lot more than I thought I would
Will we ever get to see the A-Z dishes series? Loved that one! 😊
I honestly think the "sausage texture" people get when adding the salt into the mix is from over working the meat. I think that should be the main rule to follow with cooking burgers, don't over work the meat, distribute the seasonings evenly and gently fold in.
I think it also has to do with time. Form and into the pan as fast as possible.
Yes, adding salt and letting it rest for 30m will definitely affect the meat texture since salt is drawing out the moisture.
The sifting rule really did come about as a way to make sure that there were no flour weevils or other foreign matter in your flour. Especially when flour was stone ground you could have tooth crunching bits of grit in there too. As well as milling techniques improving we also have anti-caking agents in many of our powders now to stop lumps forming. (Also at certain points in history flour & other goods could be heavily adulterated with things like gypsum dust & other unsavouries - due to their weight & particle size, sifting could let you see if you had good or bad flour).
I wonder about the inclusion of gypsum, as you mention. An American youtuber has tried adding sawdust to flour to see how that would bake and taste as bread, and found that you could get away with only a small amount. Which would make sense if you make and sell bread at a huge volume, as a professional baker, but not as a housewife who bakes just the one loaf of bread.
Good points 👏
@@erzsebetkovacs2527 On the sawdust front it's an old idea. In some Nordic countries (& other European ones in times of shortage) the cambium layer (the thin growing layer under the bark of trees) was often dried & turned into flour. This could be added to normal flour to make it go further. It's perfectly edible & does have some nutritionally available goodness to it.
@Getpojke Well England actually had to pass laws at one point because there was grain shortages so bakers were cutting their breads heavily with other things like saw dust to make it stretch. Now mind you this was old school bread and didn't have all the leaveners we use now and much more dense so wasn't as noticeable.
@@SilvaDreams Very much so. As well as because of shortages some adulteration was to give the appearance of a premium product like whiter bread. Only a small proportion of any bag of wheat would become the whitest flour needed to make high status white bread. So often certain nasties could be added to flour to give it that white look - meaning you were paying premium prices for bread that could be full of nasties.
As a baker that doesn't bake everyday, I find that sifting my dry ingredients really helps to avoid clumps you get from product settling that are otherwise hard to get out.
I doubt that was a problem in your studio kitchen, though, which is why your results were so similar.
And my rule for using wine has nothing to do with price, it's simply "Always cook with a wine you enjoy", why use a wine you don't like the taste of to begin with?
So I do cook with the wines I keep on hand to drink, and I don't buy cheap cooking wines (not because they're cheap, but because they don't taste good to me).
And yes, I always season my hamburger before cooking with it.
And I've always set my meat out from the fridge while I gather the rest of my ingredients, so it's ready to cook when I get started.
This was a really interesting episode, guys, thanks!
Always love seeing Mike & James in the kitchen.
Being from New Orleans, a typical rule is “you have to soak your dried red beans before you cook them” I personally don’t but I believe a lot of people do. That would be a fun one to test.
As James was starting to say, rules are guidelines. What works for you may not work for someone else. Or for the circumstances from which you are cooking.
Um Actually 😉 Rules are not guidelines. In cooking they are guidelines, but in other applications, they're hard limits until you exceed the parameters they were made to handle.
@@adde9506shut up
No rules are rules and guidelines are guidelines
If you think it isn't true try adding baking soda "to taste"
Video idea: let viewers send in pics of their fridge ingredients they can’t get rid of/ combine and let the normal vs. a chef battle with them. When judging give extra credit to those with more ingredients included
Great idea!
They do that with chef ingredients already to some degree.
@@OwlsAndPidgeons yep exactly and I love the format👍
Hi, I'm a big fan! I've studied and worked in baking, pastry, and chocolate.
#1 Sifting dry ingredients does not always make a difference, BUT certain dry ingredients like xantham gum really need to be sifted in order to disperse properly. Used it a lot working at a gluten free bakery and it was the one ingredient we always, always sifted. We had a special sieve just for it. Xantham does wonders to bind, but also clumps super easily the moment it makes contact with moisture.
Same thing with things like cornstarch, and occasionally baking powder. These ingredients can clump in their storage containers and if you don't whisk dry ingredients properly, can show up as pockets of what might look like flour in the end result. If you've ever had a bitter mouthful of powder in a muffin, it's likely a clump of unsifted baking powder that didn't get mixed in well enough. Again, you don't have to sift these if they aren't clumpy to begin with.
If you want your cake to be light and fluffy, such as an angel food cake, you'll find sifting your flour a couple times (aerating it) will help you get that result. In dense products like bread or cupcakes or sponge cakes, it doesn't really matter as long as it's well combined. It really depends on what you want as an end product.
Techniques like sifting have their place and purpose, and knowing what it does is helpful to know when you may want to use it :)
Love these types of vids! Cheers from Vancouver, Canada
James is right about not needing to make the 'best' product. What matters about food is that the one eating it finds it tasty, and that's so subjective a thing.
Mike & James cooking, doesn't get better than this 😁😍❤
Those steaks may have been the same cut but not from the same cow. They should have bought a slab and cut steaks out of it.
I’m almost certain they were same steak, as they mentioned they were vacuum sealed and frozen so fridge one held the shape and the other one as they mentioned they probably left out too long
the fat on the fridge cold steak looked like it had some age on it. I've also taken quite a few steaks and put them on the counter to go up to room temp, and I gotta say, they've never lost 1/2 an inch in height.
@@kezmay6679 one steak was a solid piece while the other”room temperature “ steak had a line of fat through the middle . If they were both from the same strip loin they would have had the same fat through the muscle.
@@kezmay6679 They did not even look the same cut, one looked like a New York Strip and the other looked like a Rump. The intermuscular fat was also VERY different, that does not change with just a little temp.
The fat wasn't even remotely the same color. They definitely botched that one.
With the most absolute respect, James’s arms give me motivation to make myself a better person. 😂
Also I just aspire to be as chill as James on a daily basis.
I'd like to see a video on the rules of making a Paella, starring Jamie and Kush. Mainly because I want to see the terror in Jamie's eyes as Kush does Kush things.
This was an exceptional episode. Thanks so much. ✨
You are so welcome! Thanks for watching 😁
love love love Mike and James together in the kitchen. they have such chill friend vibes together!
I loved the "no, put your hand back, your fine, we're fine, nothing to see here" moment.
10:40: "Boys, you have two Ebbers portions of wine in front of you..."😁
When James gently grabbed Mike's hand and put it on the counter. If I was there and he did that to me, I woulda gone bright red and smiled like crazy, even watching him do it to Mike my heart raced a lil
It is so nice to see James back in the Sorted kitchen. Ben, James and Kush are all good chefs, but with three distinctly different personalities.
And we want to see them battle. A two parter. First: scraps. Second: unlimited budget (but not just buying expensive stuff to be expensive).
On the whole wine argument, I buy a fair priced bottle that I like the flavour of but did not pay a ridiculous price for
I was taught to not use the super-cheap 'cooking wines' from the grocery store; but DO use a reasonably priced wine. AKA "don't cook with a wine you wouldn't drink"
I remember hearing that you don’t cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink. That doesn’t mean that the wine has to be expensive, it just means that you have to like it.
I’m not sure why you do anything with the wine you wouldn’t drink, but maybe there’s some application where the flavor of the wine doesn’t matter? I can’t imagine that being the case.
Thank you for doing this. You boys answered many of the questions I have had for a long time!
Love to see more James and his two friends... also glad to see Mike and Barry
Love seeing James back! Also, I really like this series
aw i love seeing james back. such a chilled, gentle, relaxed vibe to him and this video. love it.
Sifting is useful everywhere, but only necessary in certain recipes (such as macarons). When making muffins, cakes, etc, just whisk the dry ingredients together and you're fine.
There is absolutely no way those steaks were the same thickness. A 'relaxed' steak may change the thickness by 10 or 12% but that was insane
I'm also not convinced by the steak test.
They should cut some steaks from the center of a fillet or rib-eye, making sure they are exactly the same thickness. Then put them in the fridge overnight, and do the experiment the next day. They should also use a meat thermometer in order to get the perfect temp in the middle, so that it actually show any differences. You could of course also register how long each steak uses to reach that temp, and check what the internal temps are when they start cooking.
My prediction is that the starting temp of the steaks won't be that large, as it takes more then 30 minutes in order to warm a steak to room temp.
Agreed, the "room temp" steak was half the thickness of the chilled one. Also, very different colour fat & marbling... poor test on this one gents - get Jamie to do it next time, that man knows his meat! 😂
I'd be surprised if they were from the same cow. The only way to do this test is to take a 2 inch steak and cut it into two 1 inch steaks.
I'd imagine the wine rule should be more along the lines of "use a wine that you like the taste of" more than just price point. If you use a bottle of wine that costs 4x the price but you don't like the taste I doubt reducing it and intensifying those flavours won't do you any favours.
Also, I think on the burgers I think part of the concern with seasoning through the meat is some would have a tendency to work the meat more, I noticed James was careful to not do that.
Some more rules...
1. Rinse rice before cooking?
2. Bolognese, just 1 meat or a mixture of meats?
3. Cooking pasta, just a bit of salt or heaps of salt like the sea?
4. Poached eggs, vinegar in water?
5. Crisp packets, store leftovers/open bags secured with a clip in a cool dry place or store in freezer?
6. Yorkshire Puddings #1: use fridge cold batter or room temp batter?
7. Yorkshire Puddings #2: use batter made approx 30-60 mins before cooking or use batter that was made previous day and has 'rested' overnight.
I love everything in the episode; from the testing concept, more James, James and Mike cooking together, Barry as host, le wild Jamie appeared for the steak, and James holding Mike's hand. Aaaaah chef's kiss 💕
Ah, It's always just lovely to see these guys together again
Love James so much, so glad to see him back for a bit 🎉
I have some follow-up thoughts!
Hack 1 (sifting) - personally, to mix together dry ingredients/get out lumps, I use a whisk in a bowl. Probably aerates the mixtures a bit as well.
Hack 2 (steak) - absolutely am a firm believer in the room temp steak!
Hack 3 (red wine) - as an alternative, why not use a can or small bottle of wine? My local shop sells cans of wine and small bottles, which I keep on hand for adding to recipes. Alternatively, if my recipe just wants a splash (like a bolognaise sauce), I will open a nicer bottle that we will drink. If I'm using the whole botte, like in the red wine gravy I recently made for Easter, I used a cheaper bottle that we had for ages in our wine storage. I also wonder how the hack would work with a longer cooking time.
Hack 4 - no initial thoughts, but I would interested to do a side by side comparison myself!
I would also disagree with James. I think food rules are designed to help people get a more consistent product, not perfect. Ideally, they should also teach people the why as well as the rule, so they can use it and break it, but that's me expecting a lot of general society who probably has a lot on.
I love the briefest of Kenji cameos in this video.
Using a copper bowl for making meringues or other whipped egg whites. Some of the copper ions detach from the bowl and bond with a protein in the egg whites coined as conalbumin. This forms a strong, stable conalbumin-copper complex. I've found it really does make them whip up faster & stay fluffy longer, especially when whisking by hand. I love my copper cookware but the copper whisking bowl really did surprise me.
Always great to see James !
I am really enjoying seeing James in videos again. He brings a unique dynamic being rather camera shy but with oodles of confident snark.
I love seeing James and Mike together...there is a lovely connection. Hence why it wasn't awkward when Mike accidently put his hand on James' and he simply recipricated as, all is ok :)
Now, sugestions: when a recipe calls for more than one egg, do you put them all together and mix or one at a time and mixing between; toasting whole spices or not for flavour
Love this style of video, we gotta see more of these
I find sifting can be good to get a real thorough mix of multiple dry ingredients in a large batch of something. But honestly it's not worth the extra time and equipment (and mess) to me
Great to see James again, really easy to listen to😊
I think I've got a new candidate to test if you make another video of that topic/format:
Since many many years, I don't make bechamel as you showed but the very lazy way: Measure what you need and just pour in all the milk at once and stir it vigorously with a whisk. I've never had lumps with that method. I also use it for white sauces made with fond. Easier when heated because you don't need to stir it until it heats up and thickens but it's kind of instant.
I'd be happy if you could give it a try because it saves me so much time and effort and it might help other home cooks too.
Well, either that or you can explain why it shouldn't be done that way. What makes the difference/changes the properties of the sauce. But as mentioned, I've never had any problems with that.
Thank you!
Yes, just whisk all of it in at once! I've had more lumps trying to do it "the right way"!
Nice to see James back for a couple of videos lately. It's like when Janice made cameo appearances in Friends... Oh My Goddddddd! You could say James is Sorted's Janice. Ebbers is Ross, Mike is Chandler, Barry is Joey... Sorry Jamie that means you're Phoebe Consuela Banana Hammock.
Oh Man, The wine one is super interesting, I would love to see a deeper dive on that. There is so much at play there beyond just expensive vs cheap. Even within a "cheap" wine, there are levels... very cheap wines could have actual sugar/sweetner added, which would affect it. Is it more expensive because of aging, or are we talking a cheap 2017 vs expensive 2017? Alcohol content... which is also somewhat a factor of sugars in there... are they the same? And even beyond that (which is obvious but..) the type of wine used....
Kush casually annihilating James in the promo got me
God I love James, his journey from first joining sorted to now is such a beautiful thing. I'd love to hear what he's been up to and how he's improved since joining a "Professional Kitchen"!
i think a lot of cooking rules that don't have to do with health or safety, they were created to give people who burn cold cereal an idea how to cook at home. but, once you have gained a few levels, you can find your own feet and cook your way. and so long as it works out, it doesn't matter.
the only health and safety rule that could be defined as controversial (that I know of) is with burgers. considering the Americans cook and eat their burgers while they are still pink, but elsewhere like Canada, the ground meat must be fully (well) 165+F cooked.
It looks like the USDA has similar advice on cooking burgers, so I think it's less "controversial" and more people going "I don't know anyone who got sick from a pink burger so it's perfectly safe".
baking has a ton of rules that I think need to be obeyed. One is sifting almond flour into macarons. Two is adding wet and dry alternately (1/3 wet, 1/2 dry, then another 1/3 wet, 1/2 dry, remainder wet) or all at the same time in a cake batter.
The exception to wet into dry is when making dough using a mixer, its usually better dry into wet.
@@columbo9336 I've seized a mixer with straight dry into wet
One of the best videos you’ve had in a VERY long time. This is practical stuff I can use on a regular basis. Reminds me of some of the early videos when your channel was growing. Plus, love seeing James! I’m a baker and I only sift things like baking soda or powder, which can sometimes get little clumps.
One of the biggest thing about sifting flour is some recopies say like 1 cup sifted flour and there is is like a 1/4 cup difference between sifted flour and un sifted.
That’s why I vastly prefer using weight in grams.
See this was why I thought the rule existed, kitchen scales are a lot less common tool than measuring cups so sifting ingredients that can be compressed will let you be more consistent with volumes. If you are measuring by weights this becomes a none issue.
@umbraignisi think scales are less common in countries that use cup measurements.. nowadays you can get an accurate digital scale for a tenner at the supermarket. Using weight measurements is much more accurate no matter if you use metric or freedom units.
That's why you should measure your baking ingredients by weight, not volume.
@@umbraignis0 I think that really depends on country/region. The scales my grandma used for baking when I was little (so early 90s) already were ancient then. It was a metal basin with a slide-y thing in front to adjust the counter weight. But electric ones were also already readily available then, grandma was just old fashioned. 😄 Neither grandma nor I have ever owned a set of measuring cups/spoons.
If they had cooked the cold steak longer at a lower temperature, I'm sure it would have been as good as the other one.
They need to do this again.
When it comes to cooking with booze, my rule is cook with something you would drink. Don't go super expensive, but don't grab something bottom shelf either.
"you're cracking open a bottle of wine, it may as well be a delicious one, and you can cook with it." I agree. But there are plenty of cheap wines that fit that criteria.
Yeah, same goes for beer. Don't get Steel Reserve even if it's just to make a beer batter, but you also don't need to get Chimay. Miller High Life will work just fine.
@@jayleno2192 I say use whatever beer you've got that'll fit the recipe. I drink a lot of craft beers, and I've usually got one that'll fit the thing I'm cooking. Sometimes I'll even use my favorite barrel aged beers.
I always thought "nonstick" and "screaming hot" shouldn't go together. I never heat my nonstick pans greater than medium, to extend their life and reduce the possibility of the nonstick coating leeching into the food
That would be a good one for them to test. But then again, it might be hard to do it because it’s something that you probably can’t tell except for overtime.
@@beckycaughel7557It's actually a thing, you heat the non-stick it will actually burn and start to come off. It takes a bit of time to be noticable but a lot of the time you can see spots that will go from black to brown where it's been damaged.
turning a steak with a knive should give you an idea how much they value their non stick pans.
American here, I think that what James said was spot on. The part about rules in cooking were made to make the perfect dish but, no dish needs to be perfect. In my opinion, cooking is as much an art form as a science and so there is no perfect dish.
I think each person's palette is different and their interpretation of dishes are different which makes each dish a chef cooks a lot like a painting that a painter makes or a song a musician will perform. For example, I've always mixed onion and garlic powder with salt and pepper into my burger meat then I will season the outside with more pepper and light salt. Most of the time, I don't even add cheese because it doesn't need it. Just a little ketchup to add that natural msg and chow down. To me, it tastes better than anything I've gotten at a restaurant and I love cooking so a double win.
LOVE this series!!
I know thaf several people have already commented on softing flour, but i wanted to add my little bit of knowledge. Yes, sifting removes any lumps, but if youre sifting together with other dry ingredients, it ensures that they are fully combined into your batter. Nothing like biting into a clump of baking soda, yuck!
That being said, i have found that jus whisking the flour/dry ingredients or mixing them with a fork works just as well as sifting
There's also a theory that cooking frozen steak is the way to go. I've done it and it does work.