Hey, welcome to Sorted. We're a bunch of mates
in London looking for the little things in
food that will help make our and your lives a
little bit better. And amongst constantly
ripping each other, some of us are chefs. The rest of us,
well, we're normal. But every video we make always
starts with a suggestion from you guys. [MUSIC - JADED, "PANCAKE"] (SINGING) --but I take the cake. I'm gooey in the middle,
baby let me bake. Hello, my name is
Ben, and this is Mike. Today we recreate our very
first recipe from 2010, and then try and make
a version even better to see what we've
learned in that time. Hey guys. [MUSIC PLAYING] So today, we're going to
be doing beef and ale stew. [LAUGHTER] If you followed Sorted
for any length of time, you might know that
we do recipe labs. And it's basically where we
test every single recipe that leaves this building, whether
it's going to books, or videos, or anywhere else. And today, we
thought it might be fun to go back to our very first
recipe that we ever published, which was a beef and ale stew. There was nothing wrong
with it at the time. It just got bad with age. Like the rest of us. Recreate it as it
was in that recipe, but then also see if we could
experiment and improve upon it. Because hopefully we've
learned some things in the last eight years. Look at that, look
at that plating. Affordable one pot
cooking, 2 pound-- [LAUGHTER] 2 pound 90 a portion. Just saying, 2
pound 90 a portion. [MUSIC PLAYING] So Jay and I, attacking the
classic recipe, the very first one we did. A mirepoix, carrots, celery,
onion, garlic, all chopped up. They go into pan with
just a bit of oil. Me and Barry are
doing our new stew. And we've all put
our heads together and thought of some things that
we've learned over the years to almost improve the recipe
that we've done before. I have sweated the onions,
and garlic, and celery for quite a long time-- it's probably cut a little bit
smaller than the other guys-- and then cooked out
some tomato puree. Step three of our recipe, we
need to add our tomato puree and flower. So we've got to allow
the veg to brown. And we're going to scrape up
the brown bits from the bottom of the pan as we go. You know why? Because flavor. In Ebbrell's excitement, he's
put the garlic in already, whereas the recipe
actually states to put the garlic in later
in the cooking process. So to make sure this
is a fair comparison, I'm just removing the garlic. All right, I've got as
much of the garlic out as I possibly can. Can you wait for me next
time, and I'll tell you? Now that we have a head
start, the garlic can go in. No, what are you doing? We are literally four steps
away from putting the garlic in. What's that? That's rosemary. The recipe is just a
guideline, have a bit of fun. See what comes
out the other end. Now the garlic goes in. Step three of our recipe, we
need to add our tomato puree and flower. Try putting it into the mug,
hot water, let them steep. This is something we've
discovered, delicious beer. Use the most delicious beer
you can find, am I right? Am I right? You are right. It's going in. [MUSIC PLAYING] Beef shin all the time. We're using the
same kind of beef, because beef shin is the
perfect thing to slow cook. But we're also adding
some bone marrow for an extra beefy element. We also fried the beef off
before we put it in the stew, whereas those guys kind
of put it in the stew after they've added
all the liquid. That's just going to add
an extra level of flavor, because you're getting that
caramelization on the beef. Porcini mushrooms in something
that is slow cooked just adds another level of flavor. [MUSIC PLAYING] Dumplings. The single best thing
about any stew-- apart from the beef-- is the dumplings. Equal ratio of
self-raising flour, suet, generous pinch
of salt and pepper. Couple tablespoons
of horseradish. And just enough cold water
to bind it to the dough. And that's because
we're copying the recipe as per eight years ago. Stew has been there
for a couple of hours, which obviously gives you time
to play with the spreadsheet. So I've costed this particular
dish with today's prices. And the way we've
done it, it worked out 3 pound 58 a portion. Give them a bit of
space to expand. A couple of options, lid on to
steam it, or I prefer lid off, so you get a little bit of a
crusty top on your dumpling. We're going to make
spinach gnocchi. Gnocchi is technically
a dumpling. So what you're
actually saying is, we could make a beef
stew with dim sum and that would
still be a dumpling? Technically. Technically, yeah. Why not? Do you want to do that? Or like, a calzone? Let's put a calzone in there-- Ravioli? --because that's
like pizza dumpling. And this is why they're
not normally involved in the recipe labs. Although, it's very
creative of you, Barry. Gnocchi is really simple,
almost as simple as making simple dumplings. It's boiled potatoes, get
them as dry as possible. You know, mash them out
when they're nice and cold. And let's get some flour over,
and mold it into a gnocchi. But what we're doing, is
we're adding a little bit horseradish, and some
spinach blitzed into it, so it goes vibrant
green as well. We're blanching
the spinach, which is just cooking it in boiling
water for a very short time. And then we're refreshing
it in cold water. That keeps a very vibrant
color, and cooking it makes it blitz much better. So it will kind of be a lot
greener when we actually put it in the gnocchi. [FOOD PROCESSOR] Once we've got the
right sort of volumes, we're going to mix that with
our spinach and our horseradish. We should have some
lovely lime green gnocchi. It's a balance between cooking
them through so they're not doughy in the middle. Yeah. And we don't want
them too small, do we? Are we going to cook
them in the broth? Yeah. Are we gonna-- yeah. Yeah. This is going back in the oven. Give it 15-- 10 minutes? 10 to 15 minutes. To 15-ish. Usually, like fresh
gnocchi would cook in two minutes, or something. But it's not in boiling water. And we're not looking
for, necessarily, that gnocchi texture, right? [MUSIC PLAYING] Oh, these are much
nicer bowls than what we had eight years ago. When have you ever known a beef
stew take two people 10 minutes to plater? I mean literally,
isn't the whole point-- Guys, this-- --throw it in a pan, cook
it, let it do it's thing? This is not a battle. This is a friendly thing. We're all in this together. It's ready. Ours has won-- Come on, you've got to do it. --on time and effort-- You've got to do it. --and price. Yeah, got to do it. Go on, I'm watching. 'Cause that is beef
and ale stew, sorted. [MUSIC PLAYING] Let's turn back time and go
back to ninety-- what was it? 2010. 2010. 2010. 1994. I just want to make
sure that Ben completely stuck to the original recipe. He did put some herbs in
right at the last minute. I feel like any dumpling that's
made with suet is naughty. Horseradish dumplings
are amazing. Beef is falling apart, tender. That is-- you can't knock that. That is a dish I've had, what
feels like hundreds of times. Yeah. And it's a flipping
good version of it. And it's only
things that matter-- money, time, and washing up. Yeah, that was all
done in one pot. The thing is, for
how easy that was, it's packed full of flavor. Considering the amount
of effort you went to, is it noticeably better? Yeah. And it's not a crazy
amount of extra effort. What you've tried to get,
and we'll see if it works, is almost more of the umami. Good? I'm a little bit upset
I haven't got a spoon. Because that sauce is
a little bit thinner, but it feels richer and
more stick to your ribs, and more incredible,
even though it's slightly thinner in viscosity. That is a world
away from our stew. There is nothing wrong
with our stew whatsoever. But that just has
so much more to it. The beef is a completely
different texture. How have you done that? It's the same beef. I know, but-- Maybe moving on eight
years or so from a student, maybe as a student we wouldn't
have had porcini mushrooms in our cupboard. Maybe we wouldn't
have had bone marrow. Not that it's
expensive, but we just weren't thinking those things. But to add them in there
doesn't add any complexity to the process, but adds a huge
amount of depth to the flavor. It's at this point in
our cooking journey where it gets the most fun. And I wouldn't recommend
to anybody out there, go back to one of our recipes,
one of your own recipes, re-cook it, but find a
couple of twists to see, to kind of put you on
the edge and test it. See how far you can take it,
and have your own recipe lab. That's where cooking
gets proper fun. If you like that,
then like the video. And also, why don't comment
down below with a recipe from an old school Sorted video
that we can recreate next. One thing I didn't
like about that video was how we looked
eight years ago. Yeah. Fresh faced, ready
to take on the world. And now we're just haggard. If you follow us
on social media, you would have seen so
many people submitting their versions of our new
recipes from our new cookbook, Can't Be Asked to Cook. And [INAUDIBLE],, there are only
a few copies left of the book. I know. And do you know what is
most amazing about it? What? All of the photos that
you guys are sending in of you cooking the
recipes, most of them are of the recipes these guys
contribute in the first place. Yeah, exactly. You're bypassing-- It's awesome. --all of our recipes. But go across to our web site,
go and get one of the last few books if you haven't. They are brilliant. Members get a discount. Everything is down below. Get all the information,
and be happy. Our resident dad is on
holiday at the moment. And in his absence, he's
asked me to read out a joke. OK. This is my chance to be daddy. Has he actually sent--
he sent you one? He has sent me one. Oh, good. This morning I woke up
with rice stuck to my face. You know, I must
fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the perlow. [DRUM NOISE] [LAUGHTER] That's better than any of his. As we mentioned, Sorted is
just run by a group of friends. So if you like what
we're doing, then there are loads of ways you
can support us and get more involved. Everything you need to
know is linked below. Thanks, and hope to
see you in a few days. [MUSIC PLAYING] Turn you on? Do you know what time it is?
