Dollar Tree vs. Trader Joe's Cooking Challenge

today we're pitting Trader Joe's against Dollar Tree today we're answering the question does it actually matter where you buy your groceries and how much money you spend on them cuz listen I lost a lot of money to Dogecoin to the moon was a lie so today we're going to take ingredients from Dollar Tree and ingredients from Trader Joe's and we are going to transform them into beef and broccoli and fried rice a meal that I make a whole lot at home with simple hearty ingredients and then we're going to have a judge blind taste test them to see if they can tell which grocery store they came from and which they prefer so without more Preamble about how much I lost on crypto no for being honest I really wanted all crypto to fail cuz I didn't put any money into it and if I saw my bum friends from high school get rich off I would have been so mad all right so the first time we cooked with Dollar Tree ingredients uh one a lot of y'all in the comments seem super stoked which made me feel really good uh because Dollar Tree does provide a lot of cheap food to a whole lot of people and that is exemplied right here with our beef from broccoli and fried rice groceries at Trader Joe's we spent about 51 bucks and then at Dollar Tree we spent about $19 on the total groceries as far as a per dish basis goes it is $631 on the Dollar Tree side and then $17.50 for the whole dish on the trer Joe's side I mean that's literally three times more expensive I continue to be impressed with the amount of selection the Dollar Tree has the biggest differences that we're going to see here of course are the grass-fed ribey steak that we're using for the beef and broccoli from Trader Joe's they have cheaper beef options but we went there and we couldn't find they used to have that shaved beef you know what I mean they just called it like shaved beef they didn't have it in any of the stores we went to which is a bummer cuz that was a great product and I used to use it for Philly cheese steak speaking of Philly cheese steaks stum I love stum and listen everyone's like it's processed and Frozen I made the very bold claim that 95% of people's homemade cheese steaks would be better using St them than trying to slice up their own steak because the only ingredients in stum are uh beef listen this might just come in frozen thin sheets but it is just pure beef that's you know probably held together with some stuff uh but whatever I really like it and I think when you're combining it with vegetables like broccoli and a bunch of sauce that we're making with soy sauce various garlic powders onion powders black pepper stuff like that uh I think it's just going to do really well and it's going to be really nice and tender because that to me is what I want when I get Chinese beef and broccoli I'm not looking for like the most pristine steak I'm looking for delicious Saucy meat so literally everything from Trader Joe's was more expensive than Dollar Tree except the soy sauce was lightly more expensive and so as the flower that makes sense due to economies of scale but I mean really everything on this side of the aisle was cheaper than everything over here so I think we should probably get cooking fried rice is one of my favorite things to make at home it is super super simple and also it can stretch a lot of cheap ingredients to go along way as eggs the world has run on eggs Christian we just had this conversation the other day eggs are the best eat like five eggs a day uh the world literally has run on eggs as a cheap form of protein and you're stretching out rice with eggs with oil just getting more delicious filling nutritious calories in there uh and you can season it up with whatever you like it's a great way to get kids or adults who don't like vegetables to eat those just put the eggs back in a bowl Josh just figure it out it's not that hard I'm going to light these pans at the same time there we go we did a myth munchers episode on fried rice um and with all due apologies to Mr Nigel un AKA Uncle Roger we are not using a walk because a lot of people at home probably don't have walks I don't even have a burner at home that can like feasibly use a walk so reason sa pans which like that'll get you about 87% as good and B pluses my God if I had B pluses in college I probably would have been working somewhere a lot more boring if I'm being honest uh the eggs at Trader Joe's were a fair bit more expensive eggs there they look about the same listen most eggs unless you're buying like the real real expensive stuff like they you can only raise chickens so cheap you know what I mean like the they're chickens it's coming from a hole the big one too clas Google just here while while I'm whisking the eggs Google all the functions of a chicken's CLA and you'll come back and be like all that from one hole we're going to scramble this up if I remember my myth Munch is training correctly that's good resist the urge just eat these straight out of the pan you want to break these up into like really small curds uh but also you're going to be tossing and sautéing literally everything I see why the robots have an advantage over us now you know the fact that I can't even do this feasibly with two hands like they have an infinite amount of arms vegetables mixed vegetables we couldn't find exactly the right mixed vegetables this is thrown in a bit of a weird variable but like you know any little vegetable bits you add to your fried rice are likely to make it taste better so we're adding those we got green beans corn peas carrots over here on the Cho side on the Dollar Tree Side we got mostly bell pepper and onion going on which like that's smelling nice and fragrant uh jasmine rice cook these the same well it's just no they're the same rice dude like you can only do so much with rice I'm going to give it a toss and then we're actually going to let it try and coat the bottom of the pan and create uh a what's called a fond which is like a nice caramelization and crust forms at the bottom I just dud I do that in my own kitchen it's so bad God okay cool cool cool both the toss neglect the left hand just like Jaylen Brown got him take that Celtics take that boss with your Ben Affleck and your ice spice uh cool we're going to let this uh toss coat cook for about 2 minutes let it form a crust check back we're going to finish it up uh soy sauce is the next ingredient something I found really interesting yeah soy sauces at the at the Dollar Tree we found premium light soy sauce from Hines which I did not know they made this product looking at the the ingredients on this is really fascinating because it says water soybean y yada but then it says salt sugar wheat flour yeast extract and then flavor enhancer which I didn't think was legal to put on food menus anymore I looked as if you guys would know I I didn't know it was legal to put on food menus anymore if I had a guess it's MSG I'm going to just taste a little taste a little tasty taste but I thought you had to specifically label MSG now but again MSG is not bad it just makes your food taste good ah It Coats the tongue so nice I forgot no it's already measured out so it can be consistent well now I need to put in a little dash of the other one and I need to lick it off my palm too yeah soy sauce all right all right my bad my bad um but really I mean that gives you such an extra pump from that MSG we're going to add both of those in guys remember which pan is which what what do you mean cuz I need to sauté this with my right hand it's it's going back it's going back God the these people will turn on you so quickly this one just looks more appetizing to me but again I think that's just the Pops from the corn and whatnot um but ultimately this is going to come down to a battle of flavor we're going to finish this up get it play and then we're on to beef and [Music] broccoli hey are you someone who believes in astrology which is totally real but also loves typing things into the internet we'll go to spark.com to check out their ranking of which grocery store you are based on your astrological sign if you're an aquarius you might be Trader Joe's you're both fun you're both quirky you both have weird sexual tension at the checkout line if you're a paladin or whatever you might be Dollar Tree cuz you're both holy and mighty in your swordsmanship but also have the power of healing in large groups feel like I nailed that all right we're going to add we're making beef and broccoli um typically in beef and broccoli you would marinate the beef you would probably velvet it in some cornstarch or something um but like you you don't always have to put in the extra effort right like getting yourself fed getting your family fed that's what it's about this is going to be a delightful big mixture of flavors uh not necessarily authentic to Chinese cookery but Hey listen it's going to be tasty and like take take the shortcuts where you can you know we're not passing this off as authentic not like the Panda Express or the pfchangs uh while the beef is saw Tang let's check out some other ingredients right here the stum versus the beef we've talked about that this is actually I mean a huge bummer for me on an existential level over here we have these lovely large broccoli fettes from Trader do and then the broccoli from Dollar Tree is 90% stem so the stem that they literally cut off the broccoli that goes to the more expensive grocery stores now goes to the more lowincome facing grocery stores when I grew up as a kid I thought I hated vegetables because fresh vegetables are one of the foods that are least accessible to low-income people and I thought I hated vegetables because of stuff like this um that's a huge bummer and just a general policy issue so uh I don't know support good Charities like no kid hungry and whatnot uh so we're going to sauté this beef up let me Grand I get the grand stand for a little bit you know put me on the Soap Box I don't want to break the steum up too much I want to leave like a little bit of texture let this heat up and then we're adding typically oyster sauce would be in beef and broccoli I make that a lot at home just kind of go rough and quick with it um but they didn't have any oyster sauce there we're going to add a little bit of sugar just to add that like a lot of Chinese American dishes a lot of the reason people love Chinese American food is because there is that sweet Savory interplay with meat and sugar so not a traditional authentic recipe but we're going to drop some of that brown sugar in there and then we're going to thicken it up with a little bit of flour slurry cuz they ain't got no cornstarch either this is about Brown I'm going to get a little bit color on this broccoli in there I really when I raise a child I want to do a weird social experiment with them where I only feed them plain boiled meats and hyp seasoned fried processed vegetables to flip the association in the mind I'm have that kid that's like ew hamburgers gross I want cauliflower Tots slathered in ranch should I go yes I have done it uh garlic powder a little bit of what's what's the one that looks like black pepper called black pepper okay and then garlic powder blah blah blah uh I'm going to build my I'm going to build my sauce in the broccoli Bowl cuz I decided that I want to do that we're going to add the flour the sugar beef broth soy sauce we're going to whisk that up with chopsticks that's going to incorporate the damn it the flower Clump shoot messed that up we're fine whisk through it whisk through it baby into the pot and now the flour is just going to thicken all that stuff up we're going to test it for seasoning we're going to get this plated up along with the fried rice should be good to go Jordan mark from sport.com the internet's Premier destination for grocery store reviewing welcome hello uh we have two dishes in front of you we have beef and broccoli I know in this economy uh one of them was made from ingredients from Dollar Tree and other with ingredients from Trader Joe's please dig in let me know what you think and uh I don't know if you like approve of me as a person I do approve of you as a person thank you um I actually love you very much do you know that yeah I I love you very much I and we hang out a lot outside of work okay we don't but we have before want to I know and we want we we've hung out before and it's gotten a little too wild so we've had to yeah bring it back no actually yeah it was that's really happened it's on a Monday in a parking lot um okay I already think this is the more expensive one just upon looking at them this has a darker not darker a um more um muted tone this is a little bit more vibrant both in broccoli and in meat Pleasantville before sex Pleasantville after sex 100% is that a straight thing what is that it's a to it's a Toby Maguire thing oh the movie Pleasantville oh sorry I think my camera's up there so I'm like not everything I do is a part of straight culture I don't know well in a way it is that's okay um Pleasantville right the movie with Toby McGuire I guess is he not big in the in the quick community no I love him he's my Spider-Man honestly if you can believe that that's controversial yeah the flavors and the rice are very nice and muted or muted am I throwing that word around so much it happens they're subtle the broccoli is okay um are you allowed to tell me if the broccoli are frozen both broccoli are frozen yes you can tell you this is yes okay all right it's nice it's nice this isn't my favorite dish in general but it's nice uh this was a little bit of like a hacky recipe didn't make it like as authentic as it could have mostly in an effort to one save people time and then two uh they didn't have you know oyster sauce say at both stores or either store even I love dude invest in oyster sauce M very good they got a sports recommendation for oyster sauce too there you go yeah that's a cheaper one um you can tell in the beef um I hope at least if not that beef is so bad did you taste this you don't like it did you taste it sorry I'm eating okay and then I'll eat that one it's really bad both in texture and flavor I can hear how spongy it is as you chew it I love spongy beef oh I love spongy be but that doesn't taste good right like you might like it but it doesn't taste good I I don't know I I honestly think it tastes like it tastes very processed of course okay yeah it doesn't taste good everything about this one is better so uh which one do you think is from Trader Joe from that we knew that we definitely knew that and Jordan what if I told you holy smokes you are right that is from Trader Joe's this is from Dollar Tree Dollar Tree doesn't have a ton of fresh produce and meat so we tried to do the best that we could so the product in here is actually stum which is 100% pure beef okay and I really love stum cuz they're super easy they break up really well they're great for cheese steaks maybe not the best application for beef and broccoli but I do genuinely think that tastes good that's interesting yeah I'm I'm not that into it I think it's probably an acquired taste um that being said the best one to one on these plates are the frozen broccoli oh interesting yeah I don't think there's like a huge difference between the two frozen broccoli it's really funny if you look like there's a ton of just broccoli stem in here cuz that's what came in the bag and so like it really bummed me out from a cookery perspective but like it don't taste bad okay unfortunately I like that I like broccoli stock I think it's nice I think it has a good flavor so I kind of like that to me it feels like a little more like they're giving you the whole thing so for two portions of each of these this one cost $631 this one cost $17.50 obviously the big price difference is coming from using a whole ass grass-fed steak versus using steak ums yeah well what I'll say is save your money on the broccoli go to Dollar Tree get their frozen broccoli I think this fried rice is delicious so good job thank you thank you I try my best uh Jordan thank you so much for being a fair and impartial judge why will we'll hang out soon and it won't be in a parking lot and there won't be four Locos involved uh anyways thank you all so much for St my mythical kitchen if you take anything away from this um phone your Congressman seriously right subsidize fresh produce you know and food deserts give people access to delicious food they deserve it God dang it but also Dollar Tree you do great work Trader Joe's you do great work despite the fact that I don't like to eat mini kishes for dinner every night grocery stores of the new zodiac signs find out what store you are at sport.com

Channel: Mythical Kitchen

Views: 576,656

Keywords: mythical kitchen, mythical, chef, josh, scherer, nicole, food, taste test, snack, smash, fears, fancy, fast, recipe, culinary, cooking, cook, bake, baking, mythical chef josh, culinary bro-down, good mythical kitchen

Id: M283CYy4QeQ

Length: 15min 23sec (923 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 12 2023