- We are Sorted. A group of mates who have your back when it comes to all things food. From cooking battles, to gadget reviews. - That is not working. - And cookbook challenges to a mid-week meal pack sack - Crack your eggs. Bake. - We uncover the tools that'll help us all cook and eat smarter. Join our community were everything we do starts with you! (upbeat music) - With a little extra time on our hands perhaps, now is the opportunity to get into the DIY spirit and experiment with some DIY, make-your-own food kits. We're gonna put a few to the test here, to see if they're worth the effort during lockdown. And for wise wisdoms we've also got Jamie
dialling in from home. Hey Jay! - I feel like an audience member. I feel like I'm in that
frustrating position where I get to watch you make food, but I don't get to eat it. - It does feel a little bit weird The only safety blanket is I finally after 8 weeks put a chef's jacket back on. - Still no trousers though. - Still no trousers though (both laughing) (bright guitar music) - If he spun around. (Jamie laughing) Alright mate - So the first one I have Naked Halloumi. - Yes ebers this your
make-your-own Halloumi kit. It's everything you need to make 8 batches of mouthwatering Halloumi. - The box comes with a
thermometer, a cheese mould, some rennet tablets,
cheese salt, dried mint. - I reckon that this will
taste infinitely better than the usual supermarket
rubber, their words. And this kit should give you enough to create eight batches
of mouthwatering Halloumi. All you have to do is add milk. - Right, only one way
to put it to the test. Let's make some. So I need to heat some
milk up to 32 degrees stirring regularly so it doesn't stick and dissolve a quarter of a rennet tablet into some cold water. So you turn off the heat, add the rennet solution stir, cover with a lid and allow to leave to set for 40 minutes. (timer clicking)
(groovy guitar music) - Right, how's the Halloumi looking? - Jelly like, its got a real wobble on it I've now go to make shallow cuts in both directions, stir gently, and then
slowly heat it back up to 40 degrees celsius. Now I got the cheese
cloth that they provided in a colander, over a bowl. And were gonna separate
out the curds and whey. The fats and the proteins have separated out from the liquid. Some lumps are bigger than others. Oh also, I've realised I'm not supposed to be straining it. See I presume too much, I'm supposed to be ladling it, see the whey drips through. - This is what happens when you give clear instructions to a chef who thinks they know better. - It's so true Leave it to settle for a couple minutes, and drain using the cloth, lift the curds gently
into the cheese mould and press down gently so that the curds fill the whole mould. Save the whey because
we're gonna need that. Allow to drain for 50 minutes turning the cheese halfway through. (timer clicking)
(upbeat music) I'm excited for this, because this is cheese. I need to unwrap it, and then cook it for 20 minutes in the whey that we drained off before. - And that's the best
way to do that, is it? - Apparently so Jamie. See, kinda bouncy. So once this is up to about 90 95, this is gonna go in, bring it back to boil and then take it off
the heat for 20 minutes. (upbeat music) Then scoop out into cold water to stop the cooking. Then pat it dry, and then we're gonna season it with cheese salt and dried mint. And in theory as soon as
its cool you can use it. But I think it's better if you leave it in the fridge overnight. This is the one that Jamie made yesterday. - It's looking good - It's set up super firm and I'm hoping it's kinda
got that squeakiness to it Oh wow! That is cutting, beautifully. (upbeat music) Tastes good. The hub is amazing. And it does, even though
just salt the outside, it does kinda go all the way through. And this is the real test. (sizzling) - It's sticking. - It is - Well, Oh no! - We're going to try oiling some. Doesn't cook as well. It's almost too soft, I'd say and not rubbery enough, because any bits that char then pull away from the cheese rather than stick with the cheese. It's absolutely delicious and it has got a squeak. - All right big question, how much do you think the kit is? - 22. - It's 22.99. - There's no denying
that it's a bit of fath, by that I mean that there's
a very involved process but that's the point. You're buying it to do it yourself and to go through that which is kinda cool. If you end up with
eight blocks of Halloumi I think that's really good value. I just wanna perfect the consistency so that it chars better. It's good. (upbeat music) - Spin around my ebers. - Make your own chilli sauce. - No ingredients required, you can craft your own fiery, or not so fiery chilli concoctions. So there should be enough
ingredients in there to fashion a tangy six bottles worth. And all the recipes have been developed by the The Upton Cheyney Chilli Company and these will be ready in under an hour. - In the box, got the spice mix for the mango morita, the spice mix for smokey chipotle, got some dried chilies, clear bottles, funnels, vinegar, even got labels to put on our bottles. I'm excited to make my own chilli sauce. However, I feel like the
instructions and marketing are a little misleading. - Oh - The kit includes
ingredients to make one batch of each flavour. So we didn't get anything else and then you open up the recipes and in fact you need other ingredients. Fresh ingredients plus tinned ingredients. We haven't got tinned mango in the studio so we're gonna have to make the smokey chipotle sauce. We have got tinned tomatoes. Preheat in oven, lids sterilised in boiling water. Put the chipotle chilli
in a cup of boiling water for at least 30 minutes. The bottles go into
the oven at 120 degrees for 20 minutes. - And that sterilises them. - You wanna keep them for up to a year, which it says you can. Then need to make sure everything you're going to store in is sterilised. - Can you adjust the heat level of the chilli sauce? - I'm gonna say no. - Okay great. - Based on the fact that you need to heat up the red wine vinegar in a pan with water and once it's boiling, add in tinned tomatoes, diced onion, Worcester sauce, plus your re-hydrated chipotle chilli, removing the stalk and the packet of dried ingredients. And although it doesn't give you ratios and I guess that's the secret. It's master powder, brown sugar, salt, chipotle spice, and garlic powder. So it's not saying as much as you see fit. - Okay - And given it's full of sugar and spice you probably want it all in to balance out the vinegar. So that's going to bubble
away for 30 minutes and after 30 minutes blend the sauce and pour it into the hot bottles. - Simple. (upbeat music) - It smells incredible. (blender buzzing) Hot sterilised bottle, funnel. (upbeat music) (Jamie laughs) Three bottles done. I'll label them up when
the bottles are cool but I feel like we should taste it. - Yep - Because I've sealed it while hot, they'll last for up to a year. But once they're opened,
6 weeks in the fridge. That's the kind of
consistency we're looking at. I wonder how hot it is? I don't normally eat chilli sauce just off a spoon. Smokey, definitely sweet, enough of a tongue
tingle to know it's there and its beginning to draw a sweat but really delicious! - So what's your overall impressions of the kit then? - I think it's good. Doesn't take particularly long, it's easy to do at home and you do end up with
three awesome bottles. - And if you had to guess a price? - I'm gonna say the magic 22 quid again - It's actually 19.99, so not far off at all. - I think that's pretty good, whether you buy it for yourself to create or you gift the whole box. That's pretty good. (upbeat music) - He's turned around. I didn't even ask him to. - Make your own gin cookies. - If anything sounds like it might be up your street, it's this. Ebers this kit is going to allow you to create a boozy batch
of edible gin cookies. Our kit takes care of all of the boring baking science. So all you need to do is slap in a knob of butter and slosh in a generous glug of your favourite gin. - Oh, when is a generous glug ever been 2 teaspoons of gin? It's not enough gin. (Jamie laughs) Okay what it is though is really simple, Preheat in oven. - It feels to me like this is slightly more novelty than the chilli sauce and the halloumi that's come before it. And maybe not novelty is not what Ben's looking for when it comes to gin. - It's bizarre because
the make your own bit, I kind of think is when it applies to something like cheese which you wouldn't normally make your own. Kids aged six make there own cookies. - Yeah but these are gin cookies and you love gin. - It's got 2 teaspoons of gin in it. We'll see if that makes any difference. Tip the contents of the bag into a bowl. Two teaspoons of gin And 100 grammes of softened butter. They claim that its enriched with a heady juniper and cardamom notes. This cardamom powder in your flour mix and your 2 teaspoons of gin might give it that juniper flavour. Take a spoon though the mix and roll into balls approximately the size of a walnut. Place them on a lined baking tray, spaced apart and flattened. What's it say on the back of the box? Make 10 to 12 warm boozy
cookies in 10 minutes. Do you want to know the
next instruction Jay? Let the cookies cool in the fridge for 30 minutes. (Jamie laughs) I'm trying to be fair here, but these are the smallest walnuts I've ever seen. And I've still only got nine. It says 10-12 (upbeat music) So after chilling in the fridge, squish them a bit flat, put them in the oven to
bake as per instructions. They are baked, they've got a nice very
gentle golden hue over them. - It does look like a good cookie. - I don't imagine it's
gonna be a chewy cookie. I think it's definitely like a buttery, short-bready kind of cookie. But there's nothing wrong with that They said melts in the mouth, absolutely. They also said, heady notes of juniper and cardamom. - Oh no, you're trying aren't you? - If I really shut my eyes and think about it. (soft music) No. Beautifully simple to make, rich, buttery cookies. The gin is pointless other than to put that on the label. Two teaspoons spread
across nine and baked, they're not boozy. They're not heady with juniper, and there's not even a huge amount of cardamom in there. - You've obviously been well impressed, but how much do you think
the gin cookies cost? - 4.50. - Nine pound 99. - I think because of the name and because of the gin element it does make a quirky little gift. - Last one! Give it a lift - This is the homemade
curing kit for bacon. - The Ross & Ross, best selling award winning kit, contains everything you need to make your own original sweet and smokey cured bacon at home. Just add pork - We have fennel and juniper cure, English mustard and pink peppercorn cure and maple and chipotle cure. It also comes a musling
cloth and butcher's hook so you can hang your pork in the fridge. Along with plastic gloves so you don't get your hands dirty. This is cool, never made my own. Step one, go to butchers and ask for a 500 gramme piece of pork, rind off and bone free. It's business time. - No, no!
- That's what it says, It's business time. I don't think it says to
wiggle your fingers but, put the pork belly into a sealable bag, pour in your chosen salt, Jay which one are we going for, three flavours. - We've already done the chipotle. - We've already done juniper. - So I think we gotta go English mustard. - Salt, demerara sugar, English mustard, pink peppercorns, and the preservative's sodium nitrate. Rub your pork. Seal the bag, make sure that no air
is left inside the bag. So the curing process, yes it seasons it and gives it flavour but the salt and sugar will also draw out the moisture and take the pork to a place we basically
bacteria can't survive because of the water content and the salt and the sugar, is that curing process. That will need two days in the fridge. Flip it, another two days in the fridge. And then you take it out, wash it in cold water dry it, and then hang it in your fridge with the butcher's hook provided and some of your muslin cloth all wrapped up so that it can breathe but is in the fridge
for another three days. Luckily for us, James has done all that for us And he tried all three flavours - What a nice guy! - I say luckily for us, your there, lucky for me! - Oh no! - So three different flavours, four days of curing, three days of air drying in the fridge and you can see the texture
has completely changed. - Yep - But no where near as
far as biltong or a jerky which is like super chewy, but there's a noticeable difference. And all three smell incredible. I've got a pan heated. I'm just gonna do bacon pieces rather than cook off the whole thing. I've also chosen for now, to do it in a hot dry pan. Obviously there's
natural fats in the pork, but I'm not frying it in additional fat just so we got it's purest form. As a DIY kit, I quite like this one because like the cheese there's lots of waiting to see how things change and develop - It feels like a project to me. - Yeah.
- Because you've got the anticipation of it. You have to keep going back to it. You have to keep tending it. But, that becomes your responsibility for quite a large amount of time and I enjoy that. That's a proper project. - It's really simple, and the step by step
ingredients are idiot proof. So it does it all for you but you still get the satisfaction of having created what I hope is super tasty bacon. First one up, fennel and juniper. That is everything you want in bacon.. Mustard and pink peppercorn, definitely get mustard on that one, because it gets you in the nose. Lastly, maple and chipotle. It is sweet for the maple, and spicy, but also smokey. That's really good. - Well the big question is, how much do you think
the curing kit costs? - 15 quid. - It's 20 pounds. - I'm still happy with that and I still think its a great thing and I do feel accomplished. - Okay ebers, we had four DIY food kits. Did you have a favourite? - I've never made Halloumi before, I've never cured bacon before. They're really cool. I think there's some really
good take outs from here. And more importantly,
I've enjoyed the process as much if not more than the end product. Right, over to you guys what did you think? Would you give any of these a go or have you been trying some other new stuff during lockdown? In which case comment down below. Let us know and if there is other DIY
make your own food kits we should try, we absolutely will. - We've also built the Sorted Club where you can get tonnes of foody inspo using the Packs Midweek Meal app. Discover and share
restaurant recommendations using the Eat app. Listen and contribute to our feast joy with Podcast and send us ideas for new
cook books you receive throughout the year. Check it all out by
heading to sorted.club. (soft upbeat music) And now a blue par. - I don't know how your lockdown is going but I'm sitting here on a zoom call watching my friend-- - Separate curds and whey.
(Jamie laughs)
