(pan sizzles) - Whoa, whoa, whoa, fire, fire, fire. (upbeat electronic music) - [Mike] We are sorted, a group of mates who have your back when it
comes to all things food, from cooking battles to gadget reviews. - Ben, it's not worth it. - [Mike] And cookbook challenges, to a mid-week meal Packs app. - [Man] Crack your eggs, bake. - [Mike] We uncover the tools that'll help us all cook and eat smarter. Join our community, where
everything we do starts with you. (bluesy rock music) - So here's the deal. I'm stuck at home, I'm bored stiff, and I'm in need of entertainment, and there is nothing more entertaining, you and I know this,
than watching two normals flap around a kitchen, so I have set the boys a challenge, Jamie and Mike head to head, to create an instant ramen noodle dish, and the winner will be
crowned king of the noods. (Jamie laughs) - Well, it sounded good
up until that last bit. - Yeah, I was also not fond of the, I'm bored stiff,
so I'm calling the boys. - Well, look, it's gonna be very simple, but as always, plenty of jeopardy, because the catch, you're
both creating a dish with instant ramen noodles. Do with them as you please. You only have one hour,
and I will be judging it based on creative use of
noodles, tasty-looking dish, but also entertainment
value, the battle dance, and how organised you keep your kitchen, 'cause I can actually
see into your kitchen, so the whole thing is being judged. I'm like a fly on your kitchen wall. I'm watching everything. - I'm gonna swat you. - Right, so you only have an hour, and your time starts in three, two, one. - Right. Ah. I've done a bit of a cheat. - What? - Have a look at these, soy-soaked eggs, but to get them done, I had
to start them last night. - I hope you're bearing
that in mind, Ebbers. He's had an entire night's head start. - I don't know, I think he's
playing to my inner scout. He's being prepared. - Aw, this is already a nightmare. - Right, I'm gonna be making
a not-so-instant ramen with overnight soy marinated eggs, a rich chicken broth, mushrooms,
bacon, and pork fillet. So first things first, I've gotta get on with my broth. We're going in with two
chicken stock cubes, three star anise, some soy sauce, miso, four peeled cloves of garlic, sliced root ginger, mushrooms going in. That needs to simmer away for 10 minutes, and then I'm gonna take it off the heat and let it infuse for 10 minutes. - So you're still making
your broth within the hour, it's just not quite so instant as the sachet that it comes with. - No, but it is using a
lot of fresh flavours, and fresh ingredients, and I have control over what they are, and
the quantities of them. I'm gonna use my sachet of seasoning, but I might just use it
in a different place, like on my chips for my dinner. - Jamie having chips for dinner is just the most Jamie thing ever. (Jamie laughs) - So Mike, tell me and everyone at home, what are you cooking? - Well, obviously, Ebbers, I'm making fried chicken and chips, so I'm going to use the ramen noodles, crush them, and then use them to coat my chicken and then fry that, but then I'm also going
to use those noodles to make actual fries. - You have made, in your
own kitchen, since lockdown, filled pasta and cinnamon buns, and in both occasions,
you had a rolling pin. Why are you now using a bottle of wine? - That rolling pin is so heavy that I will go through
the kitchen work surface if I smash my chicken. I'm gonna leave that to
marinate in soy sauce and sriracha for as long as I possibly can to take on loads of that flavour. I'm gonna put that in the fridge. - Wonderful. You have had eight minutes. - [Jamie] Right, whilst that simmers, I can start on my bacon. - So, like a fantastic tonkotsu broth, which is obviously pork
bones and deliciousness, you are going porky here. I guess that's very classic Jamie in the same way that
Mike is going chicken. - Ebbers, I'm going double pork, bacon and pork loin. - You're going DP? Oh my goodness. - [Jamie] DP. - [Ben] Smoked or unsmoked, Jamie? - Is bacon really bacon
if it's not smoked? - I have to agree with that. - Bacon is a curing process. - Na, na, na, na. - [Jamie] If your bacon's
unsmoked, it's just hot ham. (Ben and Mike laugh) Right, Bacon, coming out the pan. - [Ben] Good colour on the bacon, J. (bluesy rock music) All right, what's next, Mike? - Okay, so I'm gonna get
these instant noodles boiling. I have peanut butter and an egg, and that's going to go
through my cooked noodles once they have been drained
and cooled down a little bit. Then I'm going to fashion
almost like a little tray out of tin foil, and I'm going
to spread them across that. I've gone chunky because, again, a bit like Jamie's smoked bacon comment, is it really peanut butter if
it hasn't got chunks in it? - Big fan of the nuts? (Mike laughs) - [Mike] And then that's
gonna go into the freezer. - So naturally, the egg will
kinda soak into those noodles, and they will firm up to the point that you can start to shape them, but they kinda need chilling. - All I could get ahold of in the supermarket was
a lean pork medallion, so it's a lot thinner
than a normal pork fillet, so originally, I was gonna
start this off in the pan and then chuck it into
the oven to cook through, but actually, I think
this is gonna be all right just in the pan. Pork going in. ("In the Hall of the Mountain
King" by Edvard Grieg) - One of those things I love
is that kind of soy glaze you get on things, whether it's over fish. We've done it with, like,
char-grilled avocado before, like a soy glaze, and I think that's what Jamie's gonna get out of this by adding the soy to the pan. Good colour, Jay. - Right, I'm going in with some soy. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. (Ben and Mike laugh) Whoa. - Nearly had a house fire. Best if you keep the oil in the pan, and if you do have an instant like that, damp tea towel, don't blow it. - [Jamie] That is done. Thank goodness. - Are you marking safety, Ebbers? - Absolutely, that was horrific. Boys, you are exactly
halfway through your time. You've had 30 minutes. You have 30 minutes remaining. - I have in here onion, ginger, bashed lemongrass, green chilies. It's now getting blended up into a paste. (food processor whirs) My spice paste is frying in a pan. I've put a lot of oil in a pan, and I'm starting to heat that up. I don't have a thermometer. - Do you have a wooden spoon? - Yes. - So you can test to see
if your oil's hot enough by dipping the handle
of the wooden spoon in, and if it sizzles around the wooden spoon, then it's probably hot enough. - Oh, great. So I fried my paste off
for two to three minutes, and then I added in
coconut milk, fish sauce, and some brown sugar, and now, I'm just gonna leave that slowly simmering to reduce right down to
the very end of the battle, where I'm gonna hopefully
have a delicious Thai sauce that I'm able to coat
my chicken and chips in. Ebbers. - [Ben] Yep? - Where have you gone? You've got one job, and that's to sit down
and watch something. Ebbers are you eating noodles? - Yeah, I got a bit. - What? - Well, you both made me noodle hungry, and I had a sachet sitting here, so I added some pak choi,
couple of mushrooms, little bit of fresh herbs. I got two of my five a day. Mine was an instant.
- Double pork, nood hungry, he's full of them today, isn't he? - Instant ramen noodles
are a real guilty pleasure. What are you doing next? - Now, I am making a pané station of flour, beaten eggs,
and crushed ramen noodles. I am using the seasoning, so the sachets are going into my flour in the same way that, if I was
doing southern fried chicken, I'd put spices through the flour then. - Boys, you're coming up
to the last 15 minutes. - Gotta strain my broth through a sieve into another saucepan. All right, I'm gonna
give my broth a taste. Oh, you know, it's good. - Right, chicken time. I've got my bashed out chicken breast. One hand for the wet stuff, one hand for the dry stuff. - I love to hear all these
tips that, over the years, we've all talked about. They're obviously sinking in. - [Mike] They are. - [Jamie] I am julienning my spring onion. - That's a bold word to use 'cause I know exactly what
a julienne should look like. - Does it look like this Ebbers? - And that's what's great about lockdown, you've got more time on your hands to practise your knife skills. (Mike laughs) - [Mike] Ebbers, how long we got? - Sorry, I had a mouthful of noodle. (Mike laughs) 10 minutes and two seconds. - I think I'm gonna be all right. - Yeah, that's 'cause you
haven't done anything. - Oh, shut your face. - [Ben] How's it cutting, Mike? - Yeah, it's okay, it's
chilled up just enough. I'm really excited. - [Ben] I'm certainly intrigued by the peanut butter element. - They could've done with a little bit longer, to be honest. They are holding their shape, and obviously, as they crisp up, I think they'll be good. - [Jamie] Right, spring onions
have gone into iced water. - [Ben] Makes them go nice and curly, but I'm impressed you're
doing the little things. - You know me, Ebbers. - It's never about the
little things with you. What are you talking about? (Jamie laughs) Okay, chips are a nice colour. They're coming out now. - Oh. - Ooh. - Hello.
- They're ramen fries. - So I think I'm gonna slice into my pork, and you can see, it's lovely and tender, but it's definitely cooked
all the way through. - Okay, a reminder, you have five and a
half minutes remaining. You're gonna have to get
that chicken in, Mike. - Five minutes is gonna
take me up to the wire. My coconut-y sauce has reduced right down. I've just thrown some Thai basil into that 'cause I am gonna top it with
some fresh basil as well, but I just wanted some of that flavour in. - I can only imagine the Huttlestorm that exists just left of camera angle. - Noods going in. - For a man who was kind of
ready about 20 minutes ago, J, you didn't half leave those noodles 'til the last second. - Wait, it didn't come up
to the boil quick enough. - [Ben] You've got great-looking noods. - Thanks, mate. - 90 seconds remaining. Never easy to ladle noodles. You kinda want one of
those spaghetti spoons. - Oh, wait, I've got one of them. - I'm putting Thai seven spice sprinkled over the top of my fries. - Oh, god, oh no, right. I forgot about my eggs. Ebbers, look at my yolk. - Nice. 30 seconds. - [Mike] Need to spoon
over some of my sauce. - 10, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. (buzzer buzzes) - Whoa, how'd you do, J? - Um. - How you feeling? - Presentation, yay. - Same, yay. (fire crackles) - Boys, well, if nothing else, that filled an hour of my day, and I have chuckled, so thank you, but I also hope there's two
lovely dishes in front of you. So, Mike. - What we have here is
fried chicken and chips. The chicken has been marinated in soy and sriracha before being paned in crushed instant ramen
noodles and deep fried, and the chicken is accompanied by ramen fries, so peanut butter and egg-bound ramen noodles that have been cooked, chilled, sliced into fry shapes, and fried. Topped with a reduced coconut broth, chilli flakes, and Thai basil. - [Jamie] Mate, that looks amazing. - It's definitely a
plate of you, isn't it? Got the peanut butter, it's got the kinda
southeast Asian flavours. It used the ramen instant noodles in a slightly different
way than you might think, in a dry form that was then fried, and with the fries themselves. - When I make a Thai-based curry, or a coconut broth, I don't reduce it, but that is so coconut-y
that, the next time I have time on my hands,
I'm reducing that down for ages because it
makes such a difference. You can still see some of the texture from the paste of the
sauce coming through, and you get such an intense
hit of flavour because of that. - I'm really intrigued
by the noodle fries. I don't know if I've ever had
anything like that before. - There's not really a
huge cross section there. - But there's a difference between the crispy outside and the middle. - Absolutely. - [Ben] J, what have you got? - I've got a not-so-instant ramen. So I've got a broth, and
then I've topped that with soy-marinated pork, bacon, mushrooms, and soy-marinated eggs, and of course, the instant ramen noodles. Hello, I'm a bowl of
ramen, and I'm delicious. - Aw, that does look good. Take the eggs away, because
obviously, they are cheating, but that's a pretty decent bowl. - What I really like about that is, that is far, far better than instant ramen noodles
would usually give you. - It looks and sounds like
a really nice middle ground between instant ramen noodles and a bone broth is hours and hours, but I also like the fact that you've got two
types of pork in there, the smokiness, the soy, and
the richness of the yolk, plus the julienne of your spring onions. All around, decent effort. My bowl of instant ramen noodley things with a few veg was good
as a guilty pleasure. I think both of you have gone
way above and beyond that. Jamie, I think your dish looked better. Mike, much more creative
use of the noodles. You both tried to clean as you go, although I imagine there's a
hell of a lot more Huttlestorm there is spaff all over the kitchen. - Aw, that is such an unfair assumption. - My winner today, kind
of the noods, is Mike. - Oh, I was not expecting that. - [Ben] A really genious
use of instant noodles in something that's less obvious. - I also don't think I'm that disappointed to not be Ebbers' king of the noods. - Yeah, as he was saying it, I sort of thought, hm, should've thought about how hard I tried
to winning this one. (Jamie laughs) - Right, that's my opinion done. Over to you guys. Who do you think should've won? Give them a score out of
10 for both Mike and Jamie, and tell us why you would
give them that score. Comment down below. - [Mike] We've also built the Sorted Club, where you can get tonnes of foodie inspo using the Packs mid-week meal app, discover and share
restaurant recommendations using the Eat app, listen and contribute to our
"Feast Your Ears" podcast, and send us ideas for new cookbooks you'll receive throughout the year. Check it all out by
heading to sorted.club. And now a blooper. ♪ Spaff's in control ♪ ♪ Spaff's in control ♪ ♪ Doing sexies ♪ ♪ Pulling focus the wrong way ♪ ♪ But it doesn't matter, hey ♪ ♪ Let's start again ♪ - [Jamie] Now how do you do side to side? Looks nice, doesn't it? Yeah, it does, pow. Oh, what's that? Oh, it's a sexy ramen. Yeah, it is, pow.
