BEAT THE CHEF: MYSTERY BOX COOKING CHALLENGE | Vol. 11 | Sorted Food

hello and welcome back to sorted food today we have teamed up with basf for a beat the chef mystery box challenge and we have michael hufflestone up against our chef benjamin ebral but before they go head-to-head let's take a little look inside the box and see which ingredients they have to use within the challenge shall we yes oh that's simple enough okay we have onions carrots bacon apples i know how to use those i think i might be okay now i know what you're thinking are these another ingredient from ben's allotment they're actually from a farm called eldon estate and we're going to send both of you there to learn about the whole journey of farm to fork and you can bring all of that knowledge back to put into your dishes i mean you're gonna need all the help you can get so right the main crop grown at elvin estate are carrots parsnips onions and potatoes and first we spoke with andrew about some of the issues farmers are facing and how we can do our bit as consumers how does consumer expectation of what a potato carrot onion should look like how does that impact your job probably customer expectation the biggest impact of that is food waste in the industry things that are perceived to be not quite right go into lower grade outlets or end up as complete food waste and it's a real bone of contention for me because we've got to find ways of utilizing food or changing our perception of food that you know with historically thought isn't isn't good enough what can we as normals do to to help with sustainability and to help with those issues buy local is good and you know little things about well actually can we drive packaging out of the system so it's a dirty cow if you took that home and washed it you know how big a problem is that you know you could then take out a whole load of water cleaning issues carbon energy because it hasn't got to be washed in the process and it doesn't have to go in a plastic bag if it's not washed and understand that food comes in different shapes and sizes it naturally varies like we all do cheers for that evers next we learnt that one of the most innovative means to increase sustainability on a farm is through digital technologies what is this so what we've got here is a soil moisture probe so that's recording rainfall or irrigation it then measures the conductivity of the soil which has a direct correlation to how much moisture is in the soil so i can look at my phone any time of day in any field we've got about 90 of these in different fields and can tell exactly how much moisture is available to this carrot crop and what we're trying to do is to make sure that it doesn't come under stress so all the time we're looking at weather forecasts i say well if it's going to rain we don't need to irrigate if it's not going to rain then we need to put some irrigation on when and how often and this this technology is allowing us to do it which presumably saves the the cost of inputs not just the cost to the bottom line but also the cost to the local environment we have to be really conscious that every drop we take out of the environment we've got to absolutely utilize when you think of digital farming what is the first thing that comes to mind it's a huge topic digital farming it is over a lot of what we do from precision application to robots picking individual strawberries but for me digital fire i still can't get my head around it is self-steering tractors and equipment you can sit there and it's doing the work for you that's the kind of evolution that we've made where we're using technology to help us really accurately apply and deliver the products to fields but you don't need to steer it next up we met with anna to learn more about precision farming so in layman's terms what's that big red thing doing here so that is spraying chemicals onto our crops which are necessary for crop production so that's things like herbicides to kill any weeds it's insecticides which kill insects which might damage the crop we hear the word sort of precision farming sort of spread around what what exactly does that mean so that's all about reducing your inputs it's about making sure that you're getting the most out of your crop production so this spray is a great example of precision farming because he's got auto shutoff on all his nozzles that means when he overlaps on a bit that he's already been on the sprayer will stop so that means you're not getting overlap and chemical you're reducing your your waste and in that term and you're also ensuring you can get the maximum efficiency out of your crop obviously we all know what the the carrot the root part is the orange bit but what happens to all of the field of green here so before they're harvested um they'll be topped and that top just gets left on the soil we just leave it there it rots down it decomposes and it adds to next year's crop it's not very smart tasty carrots now i'm stressed okay boys the challenge here is to celebrate everything you learn on the farm by creating a dish that maximizes all of the ingredients to the full are you ready yes three two one cook godspeed right no messing around i'm chopping up a whole bunch of things carrots onions cauliflower runner beans and cucumber because i want to turn them into a picca lily then i'm going to throw them into a bowl salt them and leave them there for about 40 minutes so ebbers pick a lily you're going for the perfect 1950s on trend recipe how are you pairing that with something that maybe other people might have heard of i saw a jar of pickling in the elven farm shop and thought haven't had that for ages i want to recreate it it celebrates all the veg they go on the farm plus a few that i grow in the allotment it's a spiced mustardy chutney that celebrates vegetables because i'm gonna make a plowmance what better way to celebrate the lunch of a farmer and the produce from the farm then they plowman's you've already had 12 minutes which is 10 of your time and mike you have cut half an onion did they not have any larger onions i specifically picked this size of onion to prove a point i am making a pork and toffee apple on slaw with caramel sauce and a herby vinaigrette so think so so ben's created a picnic he's taking us to a weird twisted fun fair in the farm shop i went straight to the booze obviously and i found this toffee apple moonshine can i take pork wrap it in bacon drizzle it with a toffee caramel sauce using the moonshine put it on a bed of slaw and then top that with a vinaigrette made from the carrot tops now barry as judges of this battle i know we're meant to remain impartial but it sounds to me like mike has made my perfect dish the thing is conceptually yes but he hasn't made it yet next up for the pork filling of my pasty so obviously norfolk really big on pork so i've gone for streaky bacon belly pork and pork shoulder all minced up and i'm gonna combine it with onion garlic herbs and the spices of nutmeg and mace you know me i love a story so whilst i didn't have time in this battle to make necessarily a pork pie and to get the jelly as we would classically know i thought we can do a pasty so i'm gonna make a lard based pastry and i'm gonna fill it with a pork pie filling but only about three quarts of it the other quarter i'm going to fill with apple so it's a a main and afters pasty in one edges is back in the game in which case i need to do the apple filling so a couple of apples peeled diced and mixed with sugar sultanas mixed spice and corn flour and the corn flour will kind of thicken it as it cooks in the pasty so it doesn't become too wet and make the soggy pastry so i've cut my massive onion up in half then one half into eight wedges i've fried those off in a pan added butter brown sugar cider vinegar bit of seasoning and some thyme fry that off for a little bit the wedges then get flipped and the whole pan goes into the oven to slow roast so the reason i picked this massive onion big big take out for me from talking to andrew and visiting the farm was we as consumers have perceptions of what food should look like if it's been grown in the right way by the right people on the right farms any produce whatever the shape and size is great and gonna taste amazing we had no idea the process onions go through before they leave the farm it's insane we watched literally the smartest bit of kit that just sorts onions two fillings done the pastry that's going to encase it is a large base pastry so more pig from norfolk but we've got lard melted into water which we're then going to pour into flour that's got an egg beaten into it so it's got one egg beating in and then the hot fat and water and while it's hot we're going to shape it and roll it boys you've had a third of your time oh what's happening here well this year is all about self-improvement and learning from your mistakes in order to beat the chef i'm playing the chef at his own game which is plying you with alcohol yes oh that is delicious so i'm making like a classic tasting barbecue sauce but i'm using apples i'm using some of my onion and i'm finishing it off with my toffee apple moonshine which adds like a creamy sweetness once that's reduced down become nice and thick i'm going to blend it up season it to taste and it's good to go another thing i bought some smoked english whiskey so this is from a distillery in norfolk a rarity an english whiskey distilleries you know my friend james bafford would like that um ebbers i'm picking up on a sense of panic about your pastry so there is a certain time pressure with the pastry because it is a hot fat pastry you want to roll out and shape it while it's warm because it does set up as it cools because it's got the fat we don't need to use a floured work surface i'm going to roll it out to a shape big enough to cut two large circles each of those will become a pasty three quarters pork one quarter apple evers obviously pork was one of the main ingredients within the mystery box what is it about the norfolk suffolk area of england that makes it so good for rearing pigs so the soil in that part of the world norfolk and suffolk is probably much better suited to root vegetables carrots parsnips onions potatoes things like that less so for grass and therefore you tend not to get livestock that eat grass cattle and sheep and you get more of the pig poultry is that a hole ebbers is that a hole it's definitely a whole boat hey the good news about pasta is you want a steam hole a steam vent do you want four of them though yeah do you want four of them on the side oh oh oh he's having a terrible this is a good one why is that pastry left on the work surface underneath where you're good that's gonna be a nightmare it's just so sticky you could you should have used flower ebbers you don't you shouldn't need it because it's a fatty pastry you shouldn't need it i do we are we are impartial judges here but this never happens into an oven for 40 to 50 minutes nice high temperature and fingers crossed we'll end up with something that comes out golden crisp and not with too much of a puddle on the bottom where the bottom pastry hasn't worked [Music] so i've got to finely dice this [Music] [Applause] my idea was to zoom and now they're a bit wet because of my solutions man i'm going to drain them the reason these can't be wet is because they're going into my sausage mix to form part of the pork balls so if there's too much moisture it's just going to ruin and become sticky and rubbish right lads you are an hour into your cooking time that means only one hour left now the veg for my picca lily have salted i'm going to boil them in a combination of vinegar water turmeric ginger and mustard seeds just for a few minutes to soften them then drain them out and then i'm going to use that liquid to create a sauce which is thickened with flour sugar and mustard powder combine it all together let it cool down pick a lily my other pickle other than the massive one that you're in now because of the pastry my second pickle is beer pickled onions so i'm going to use more onions separate them into the individual petals of a quartered onion and then i'm going to quickly dump them into hot beer vinegar so malt vinegar with sugar juniper berry and some herbs and i've deliberately chosen one of the breweries that elven supplied their barley to in crop rotations you can't just grow carrots parsnips onions and potatoes every year because bit by bit the soil struggles over years and years so you have to rotate it with other things other grains other legumes they do a lot of rye and a lot of barley in rotation so the barley goes to the brewery to turn into malt to end up with beer and i'm also using malt vinegar so it's a celebration of some of their grains from the farm too oh ebbers no need to panic you've got control it was there is nothing in control about that it's pork ball time in here i have sausage meat diced apple my freshly squeezed onion which is bone dry lemon zest some thyme sage parsley and seasoning it's getting rolled up into balls wrapped in streaky bacon and then deep fried i'm so excited for this taking inspiration from ebba's pastry skills i've decided to poke these and secure them with cocktail sticks so that i don't get any holes these are then deep fat fried for eight minutes at 160 reason we're going a little bit lower is because they need to cook all the way through so that's going to take about eight minutes [Music] this is a slurry of flour sugar and mustard powder that then gets dribbled into the hot spiced vinegar that we cooked the veg in that will thicken a bit like a roux and when we pour over our veg boys what's this i've got to keep up with mike he's been he's been feeding you with dousing tempting tempting treats the difference is he bought his whereas i've gone to the effort of making mine so some seasonal dams and plums which i've done a rose style maceration for two weeks in gym where he thinks homemade gives him the advantage yeah what i think is mike's has been through a quality check whereas we know that has been made in a bathtub exactly that's quite special oh no it might look like it's leaking he's standing looking at the oven tapping his foot like bake off star this is amazing [Music] right boys you have 30 minutes remaining that's tight because i've still got three things left to do and one of those needs to go in an oven carrot tops are tough so i've got to boil them and wilt them first so i'm doing that in water by adding some oil capers gherkin salt sugar to inject some flavor into this then blend it all up i have to add some water to get a consistency right but that should be my my dressing so my crisp breads is rye flour baking powder salt a little bit of honey a little bit of butter and then brought together with water into a dough but i'm also lading it with seeds both in the mixture and on top a little bit of egg white will help the seeds stick and then we're going to bake them off what you use in there ebbers i know where you're going with this i'm doing parsnip and carrot crisps as part of the plowman's package right so what we learnt on the farm was parsnips aren't good until they've had a frost that's when all the sweetness gets locked in and they taste incredible we haven't had a frost yet you're using that out of season what i'm using is parsley carrot to make salty crisps i don't want these particular ones too sweet this is the pickled liquid for my carrot slaw it's water vinegar sugar salt onion and mustard seeds gonna bring that to the boil and then i'm gonna dunk in my radishes and my carrots i'm also going to boil up some carrot tops with some sugar some water and some salt then add in mint last minute and then blend the whole lot into a carrot top and mint sauce okay coming down to crunch time boys 10 minutes left [Music] norfolk white lady cheese one minute to go [Music] ten nine you do now like eight seven six five four three two one step away from your dishes he spaffed it that was a challenge shall we get them into the sexes and then do some judging please [Music] well we've seen the cooking we've heard the stories that justify it all shall we taste the finished products yes let's do so if there's lots of components should i hack into some of this yeah do it ever serve us up let's go through the pasty no one's ever covered what are you doing you've destroyed the internet yes but i want to show people at home what how backwards you are that well look you've got to see the apple on the porch i see what he's done there he's showing this now you know after that [Music] now dig in dick into me other things and just help yourself give me some green thank you cheers cheers cheers cheers the sausage part of the pasty is exceptional almost pork pie yeah in terms of the scent that is not a cornish pasty no parsnips feel like they're missing something like a slight frost for all of the panic of your pastry i think your pasties have turned out really really great i can't even say this but the standout thing for me on on that board is the onions something i would never have dreamt to do at home it's also all really delicious are we ready for this boys ready oh cheers cheers cheers [Music] wow there's elements there that are incredibly sweet and sticky and then you've got a real tang that cuts through from that orange sauce the sweet onion and apple in the sausage meat makes it like super moist i'm getting peat or smoke straight from that sauce and then i'm left with the spice of the chili it's really nice two very good boards i think during the process we saw some elements of a hustle storm yeah we also saw in ebersnado which i was not expecting but you've left us with a very difficult choice yeah but we think we have a winner and that winner is michael hutterstone oh i wasn't expecting that because that was amazing for the win well well deserved well played what a journey well again we've learned so much about the ingredients that we cook with so big thank you to basf for taking us on that farm to fork journey and a big thank you to andrew anna and the rest of the team at the eldon estate if you'd like to know more about them you can find out in the links below we'd also love to hear from you comment down below let us know would mike have been your winner would he have beaten the chef you can also see some behind the scenes footage of us asking the experts your questions in the description box down below well done boys [Music] that's going to be good for pickling

Channel: Sorted Food

Views: 1,041,826

Keywords: beat the chef, food challenge, sorted food, chefs vs normals, cook off, recipe challenge, sortedfood beat the chef, sorted beat the chef, chef vs normal, sortedfood battle, sorted cooking challenge, sortedfood ultimate battle, ultimate battle, sortedfood, cooking battle, fail, chef, beat the chef winner, beat the chef 2021, recipe challenge video, British farm produce, piccalilli, ploughman’s, meatballs, ploughman lunch, ploughmans pickle, ploughmans sandwich, piccalilli relish

Id: _bAQI9nNuTY

Length: 22min 4sec (1324 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 07 2021