- [Jamie] We are SORTED, a
group of mates from London exploring the newest and
best in the world of food whilst trying to have a
few laughs along the way. (laughing) We've got chefs, we've got normals, (bleep) and a whole world of
stuff for you to explore. But everything we do starts with you. (upbeat music) - Hello, I'm Barry and this is Michael. - Can science help two
normals out-chef a chef? Before we start anything, do we all know about MSG? (playful music) - [Barry] The human tongue is covered in 200 to 400 small bumps
which contain taste buds. Those taste buds contain taste receptors. When you chew food, your
saliva breaks it down into smaller molecules so it can be detected by those receptors. They then identify which taste it is and send an electrical
impulse to your brain so you can taste it. Umami, basically, is the taste of savory. It's why burgers, ramen, lasagnas, and all that stuff are so delicious. But what does this have to do with MSG? Well, in 1908, some
clever Japanese scientist identified the exact chemistry
of that savory flavor whilst experimenting with kombu seaweed and discovered that the amazing taste was down to a naturally
occurring salt protein combination called
monosodium glutamate M-S-G. MSG has since been
extracted, crystallized, and exists as a powdered flavor enhancer as well as naturally
occurring in the cooking of meats and mushrooms, etc. A popular belief is that
MSG can cause headaches and other feelings of discomfort but current studies have found
no evidence to support this. So the question is, can
you improve the flavor of your food by just adding MSG seasoning? And can two normals use it
to create a better burger than a chef in a blind taste test? In this challenge us normals and the chef will have exactly the
same ingredients to use. We've got chuck and we've got brisket. - Okay, from what I've read-- - The love the research
that I've read up on. - [Both] 70% lean meat, 30% fatty meat. - Provides you with a fattier burger and what does fat equal? - Flavor.
- Yes. - So I'm going to weight this out. I'm gonna experiment a
little bit with the brisket but I'll probably use
more chuck than brisket and then I'll top it up with fat. Everything's got to be really cold because it will heat through
and the fat start melting as it goes through the grinder. - Next thing that we want to do is to cube up our steak and mix
it all together in a bowl. So that when it goes into the grinder, you're getting bits of each. So it gets perfectly mixed together. - If I stuff you, will you plunge me? (grinder whirring) Gonna add everything a little
bit of time, push it down. I'm also gonna add some beef dripping because that's what I always
do when I make burgers. The dripping has been in the freezer. That's my little hack. And that just allows you to
play with the fat a little bit so that you can make sure
the fat content's right. What is that? We're not using that, that's pathetic. - Basically when all the
fat spills out of the burger it cooks in the fat rather than the fat going around to other parts of the pan and you're not able to utilize it. - Fair enough. Still looks silly, though doesn't it? (laughs) I'm gonna go straight out
and say let's just form them. The less you handle them, the better. - [Jamie] So, if it's completely flat, everything cooks at the same rate. - [Mike] Yes. - [James] Whereas, you've
got nooks and crannies, you get crispy bits, you get softer bits. - I'm just gonna gently push it into a ring that it is bigger than my bun because they're gonna shrink as they cook. I'm also gonna weigh my meat. That's super important because you don't want a patty that's too small, you don't want a party that's too big. I think I'm gonna go for like 120 grams because one of the things
that I love is a double patty. My patties are shaped
I've barely touched them so I hope they're going to hold together. To help that, it is essential
that you chill your burgers before you cook them. All the fat's going to be cold and then it's gonna
render out as it cooks, so I'm gonna put these in the freezer. You could put it in the
fridge, for a bit longer, but the freezer's fine too. (energetic music) - Here's where we've got to so far. We've cooked off two patties at a very high heat which may or may not have caused a fire alarm issue. One patty had just salt and pepper on it. The other one had salt pepper and MSG. Cheers. - I mean just off the bat, that's great. - Tender in the middle,
nice crispy outside. - Okay, hold that thought. It's a little bit rarer in the middle. Do you know what, that
tastes like pure steak. - That tastes so much better. - This is an issue because
it really does work. There have been a lot of articles to test whether MSG as an
isolated thing is addictive and there's no evidence for it. But I do keep on going back to that. - I wonder though, it's not like substance itself that is addictive but the effect that it has
on the food is so delicious makes it addictive by nature rather than-- - [Mike] It's a dopamine thing, isn't it? - Yeah. Is that why we've never
been addicted to Ben's food? - Could be. - I don't think this is very
good for cooking burgers in but it is good for getting a
really good char on the buns. So that's just gonna go on the heat while I cook the burgers. While the burgers are chilling, I'm gonna focus on the
rest of my fillings. That's gonna be tomato, lettuce, onion, cheese, and the sauce. I have two options. Number one is to keep
it absolutely classic and just slice it really
thinly into rounds and number two, is to
make a comeback sauce. You're gonna go rounds and
I'm gonna dice the dill pickle into the sauce. (funky jazz music) - [Jamie] I'm gonna toast up
brioche buns in our burger pan so it gets the flavors of burgers. Is that toasty? - [Mike] Yeah, that's decent. - We haven't even talked about sauce. - [Mike] I know, 50/50
tomato ketchup and mayo and then an extra 20 of French. - American mustard.
- Making 120% of sauce. - [Jamie] Surely, that's gonna win. - That is most excellent. - That's fantastic. - Well done. Pinch of MSG? - Chuck it in. - Right, sauce time, three, two, one. Three tablespoons mayo,
two tablespoons ketchup, one tablespoon American mustard (squelching) and some dill pickle. Final thing to do is lettuce
into a bigger mixing bowl. Mix a little bit of the sauce through it, just so all kind of comes together. - I think the fact that
MSG is like a naturally occurring substance and isn't something that's been made in a lab. I thought it was a chemical. I thought it was something
that been made by humans. - [Mike] Like a synthetic chemical. - To make things taste
better and more addictive. - It feels like a game-changer, if it really does make
everything tastes more umami-ish. - Yeah. - But then it also feels
like an absolute cheat and therefore there's something
like immoral about it. If it's gonna make normal
people or home cooks' food taste better, is it bad? - Yeah. - Yeah, it's really interesting. - I'm going to put a
little bit of beef dripping in the pan as well although these could probably go into a dry pan because there's so much fat in them. I'm gonna preheat the pan so I'm gonna wait a few minutes at least until the pans are really, really hot. (sizzling) Once they're in the pan,
I don't want to touch them until I need to turn them. They're quite cold so they won't
cook too much in the middle so I can leave them a little while, flip them, color on the other side, cheese on top, lid on, melt the cheese and then they come out. (energetic music) - You've got to be ready to catch that if I have to go and get fire alarm. Take it off the heat. - Blah. (coughing)
(laughing) - I don't feel like I quite
got the ooze from the cheese that we were looking for,
before I got so smoky in here. that I couldn't see anything. So, what I'm doing is taking
a blowtorch to just the top and it's just gonna be
like grilling that cheese. So, hopefully it starts
to melt down a bit more. - Are you thinking what I'm thinking? - I'm thinking that that looks like-- - Yeah, MSG. (laughing) (glorious music) - I'm quite nervous. - I'm quite nervous as well. - What have you got to be nervous about? - You're nervous. - You have nothing to lose. - In fact, if anything, we've cheated. - [Jamie] Go on, there Bares. (rock guitar music) - Straight off, two
awesome looking burgers. - Ugh, this makes me cry. Cutting a burger is the worst. - I do agree but-- - If you're gonna cut--
- You couldn't agree. You do it every single
time you have a burger. - I do agree but wouldn't you hate it more if I just ate it all? Cross-section is good. Little pink in the middle. - [Jamie] Cheers. - [All] Cheers. - I like the crunch and
taste of the gherkin. The sweetness of the bun, it's meaty. I could happily stop there and tell you that is a delicious burger. Straight off, this is
different in the sense that it's double patty,
so two thin patties. - [All] Cheers. (competitive intense music) - I feel that is so beefy, it's almost tastes like I'm eating it in a farmyard. (laughing) Do you know that kind of like,
it almost tastes so bovine, that you could be there. (laughing) - Wow, I'm glad I haven't
got make a decision. - Both are delicious. I like the medium-rareness
of the first burger that's still a little bit
more pink in the middle but I favor of the two, was
one with the double patty. - [Mike] That was James' burger. - [Jamie] James' burger. - Yes.
- Well done. - I'm still a chef. (laughing) - I would happily have demolished
an entire one of either or possibly even both. (clattering) - There's another one here. - Now.
- What is this? - This is different, again because this is our exact same burger but without MSG. - I prefer this one to your first burger. - Really?
- Yeah, definitely. - Why? - Because it just tasted a little bit off but maybe it's just 'cause I knew but I don't think it was. - It made one element
of that burger better which was the patty itself. As soon as you've confused
it with other flavors, it just dissipates. - It's interesting that
you couldn't even notice it or you know, it didn't
even make it better. So I think that answers
a question in itself, which is interesting. - I sit on the fence on this one because it has had a lot of
negative press over the last several decades but from what I've read, I still don't understand
why you would ever need to add it into food. If there is a risk and a chance, and a small chance, however small it is, that it might, even in small doses, have a detrimental effect and I also agree as I sit on that fence as would excessive salt, excessive sugar, excessive fat, excessive
alcohol, excessive caffeine. - Driving your car, leaving the house. - Exactly. - I'm really glad that you preferred James' burger over ours. - I actually feel that that
was a good thing for humanity. - If, by some miracle, we'd prove that actually this powder can take away all of that knowledge
and you don't need it, then, we might as well
just pack up and go home. - All right, so comment down below on your thoughts on MSG. Is it cheating? - Now, we found loads of
really interesting articles whilst researching this
and we've also linked out to those down below. So, you can go and inform yourself and form your own opinions. - Speaking of chefs,
in this week's podcast, we discuss, do you have to go to culinary school to become a chef? - It's a very, very interesting. We get right into it and
if you want to hear that then you need to sign up to our club and you can find out about
all of that down below. (energetic music) Every Sunday we normally
do a dad joke of the week hosted by Jamie, he's not here, but Barry's also a dad and also really great at telling jokes. - Shut up.
- So it's up to him today. - I hate this pressure. Went to zoo the other day.
- Yep. - Saw a baguette in a cage. Apparently, it was bread in captivity. - Oh you nearly (laughs). - I nearly screwed it. God, I hate this. As we mentioned, we don't just make top-quality YouTube videos. - [Man] Nope. - [Barry] We've built the SORTED Club, where we use the best things we've learned to create stuff that's
hopefully interesting and useful to other food lovers. Check it out if you're interested. Thank you for watching and
we'll see you in a few days. (beeps) - If you get your hips into it as well. (sizzling)
