He does have a fair point. There's a difference between ordering take-out on a sunday during dinnertime and getting something fast because you forgot to have lunch in the middle of the week and now it's 2 pm.
Well, the man doesn't order take out, so he doesn't know that take out is usually a minimum of 30 or so minutes any given time. There's a whole economy thing about people who work with delivery who need to make a living, but the other side of the argument is that, most people don't have £15 to pay for a dish of noodles. Which is quite outrageous.
@@lewismaddock1654 I don't live in London and it's usually less than half an hour, same with other places I've lived. Even when I lived in a village (takeaway was in the nearest town 15 minutes drive away) on a Saturday night it was 40 minutes at most.
I love videos like these. Just a chance for Ebbers to flex his chef skills - in case we've forgotten what a great chef he is. He chopped vegetables without looking at the board, beautifully plated up 2 servings of his dish much faster than the takeaway - but he also explained all the steps along the way, cleaned the kitchen and was cool as a cucumber the entire time. Sure, it plugged the app, but it also really drove the point home, made me feel bad for not cooking at home more often, and I know at least I'm gonna think twice before I order takeaway next time.
It's fun chopping veg while making eye contact with whomever you're talking too. It is a bit of a flex, but its also fun watching their eyes dart down nervously expecting to see you've chopped your fingers off. 🔪🧅🤚
I love cooking, I'm an 'engineer', so all day long i'm adding 'ingredients' and doing timings, (Gant charts) It's so good to get home and just cook something. Anything. It's therapy.
@@eatdirtmofo Yeah, when I had a job that meant dealing with the public all day I'd just get in the kitchen as soon as I got home. I just wanted half an hour or so, cooking, unwinding & not speaking to anyone. Then I was happy to sit & chat away with my partner for the rest of the evening. (I didn't ignore her when I came through the door or anything, that would be rude; pleasantries were exchanged. But then it was kitchen bound.)
There is one thing the guys didn't touch on which is sometimes the determining factor when ordering out - while the delivery is on it's way you can be _doing something else_. We usually end up ordering out if we're in the middle of a huge project and my husband is just too busy and/or exhausted to cook
Yea I always am annoyed at the comparisons because when I order take out or delivery it’s almost always I need to go to the store or I’m tired and don’t want to cook which isn’t ever the issue in these videos. Sure if I have all of the ingredients then cooking is way better
True. Also similar with a frozen pizza. With the preheating the owen, and cook time, you could make a dish from scratch instead. Or you could just relax or do other stuff.
@@John...44...well there’s no comparison between what they did. Of course making it yourself is cheaper and healthier and whatnot. Delivery is in the conversation for 2 reasons: time, convenience. You do it because you need to do something else in that time, or because you don’t feel like shopping & cooking. That’s why it ended up being a sidekick app ad for “the shopping being done for you” so you can ignore that part and choose cooking, taking out that issue from being a reason you choose not to cook. But they missed the time necessity entirely, and while a good self-promote, a self-promote to consider their findings as accurate/possible is bad.
Sidekick Suggestion: make a section in the app where you can keep a running list of what is in your kitchen (especially useful for ingredients you'll buy lots of and not finish soon, like fish sauce) and then make an algorithm that searches existing Sorted recipes for matches to your store cupboard. Rank the results by highest number of matches, then highlight the ingredients that match. Ingredients where you have the amount or more should be highlighted in green. Ingredients you don't have enough of should be highlighted in yellow. Ingredients you have listed that you are allergic to should be highlighted in red. Ingredients you don't have are unhighlighted. The meal packs are great, but if the package sizes are different or I have leftover ingredients from making one of my own recipes (like half an onion and a pint of cream), it doesn't really help me find uses for these things. Or I have all the ingredients and just don't realize I could make something with them; like flour, eggs, olive oil, and whole garlic are frequently in my kitchen, but I would never think to make fresh Aglio e olio.
This is such a great idea! Basically teaching/helping normals to keep an inventory similar to a restaurant. I bet a lot of food waste happens in the pantry when canned food expires or an open box of something has gone stale
I really appreciate that you guys still discussed the merits of the takeout dish. Being able to have a single portion of something you know would be expensive to cook at home and would generate an overwhelming amount of leftovers is something I wish more people considered when doing these challenges. Also the fact that I need the items on hand ahead of time in order to truly make cooking feel more convenient than ordering. I find typically ordering out, especially delivery, stems from feeling overwhelmed in some capacity and the lack of willingness to leave my house. And as someone else mentioned, sometimes you’re in the middle of something and to stop and cook for anything longer than 15 mins or to cook something that requires attention and isn’t a throw it in and forget about it type dish just doesn’t feel possible.
Have you tried doing an online shop? A lot of these delivery apps also do groceries for smaller shops. That might give you more energy for the actual cooking. You can also buy ingredients that don't need any prep, e.g. pre-chopped veg; frozen peas, sweetcorn, etc; dried carbs like pasta, noodles or cous cous (just needs boiling water pouring over and leaving for 5 mins); tinned goods like tuna and tomatoes; healthy freezer foods like fish fingers. You can also buy good (restaurant) quality ready meals for less than the price of a takeaway in most supermarkets, which are great for days where cooking really isn't going to happen.
I desperately want a video that's just the chefs chopping things. Not even like a knife lesson or a voiceover or anything, I just want to watch them chop things So Well. It scratches my brain in all the right places.
@@ST-vt4nu Practice. I started just using garlic in everything. Start slow and focus on the technique, once you can keep your hand steady you can start to increase speed. Oh and a really sharp knife, I feel like not having a sharp knife is probably 75% of peoples issue with knife skills.
@@emanresu8968 i put garlic in everything, but I just use a garlic press most of the time. I use a lot of garlic and Im not mincing 6 cloves by hand when I can just garlic press them in seconds 😅 I know i wont learn like this, but oh well 😂
As someone who is a trained chef there are two styles of cooking I will consistently go out to eat/order takeout because it is essentially impossible to do them at home unless you have special equipment. Woks and tandoors. Other than that I can cook almost anything if I can find the ingredients. Amateurs can certainly learn to cook their favorite dishes/cuisines if they put in some effort as well.
Woks, deep fryers, pizza ovens... Also, baked goods. I just don't have the energy for croissants most of the time. Resting and then individually cooking pita bread is exhausting. There's a lot that just isn't enjoyable or worthwhile to make at home compared to the results you get.
@@totalvoid6234 Are you making noodles? Making ramen noodles at home is possible I did it once as an experiment but it's an all day project and there's a step with some pretty unpleasant substances. I'd just buy the noodles already made. Other than that ramen ingredients are pretty common items in Japanese cuisine. I guess the one most unusual in the west is pork stock as we don't make pork stock a lot and Japanese stock making is sort of tedious but it is not hard just another all day thing.
Something I learned from J. Kenji-Lopez alt. that totally changed homemade stir-fries for me is using a blowtorch to add that wok(ish) char and flavor Ben mentioned might be missing from his dish. Takes 30 seconds, and what a difference!
If you do it yourself you also have the cleanup, etc. which needs to be added timewise. And having a chef with his cutting skills, etc. do it, also skews the result for time needed to make the dish. There is enough reasons to not order takeout (most of all cost), you do not need to add artifical imbalances ;-)
It really depends where you are going, since he mentioned socializing it's possible he is going to the pub. Even here in the states there are small pubs and hole-in-the-wall restaurants that offer good food for cheap. Although the 1 around where I live happens to be hangout of a biker gang great food but can be a bit offputting for some.
This doesn't take into account one of the big strengths of ordering out, which is that everyone can get something different and it still takes about the same amount of time. Ebbers would have much more trouble making 3 or 4 dishes and beating the delivery than when he's making one.
What I love about this video, is that they don't slag off the restaurants. They actually say it's good. Other people who do this Vs takeaway usually says theirs is much better, undermining hard working restaurant cooks, who actually do this for a living, and have more practice.
My family has recently started using sidekick, we love that there are recipes that are quick, we live in the country outside delivery areas so we've been doing the basic recipes using ingredients from the garden and freezer when we are too tired to go shopping. Find 2 portions feed 4 of us most times.
Well, I have the same problem cooking up things for dinner. You guys could show us some meals that freeze well after cooking :) Your creativity would surely allow for more than bolognese, chili and goulash in regards to that :)
I order the food on my way home so it arrives at the same time as I do. I love cooking but some days takeaways take the stress out of adding more things to do.
I'll be honest, probably will never get your app, subscriptions online scare me. However, for some reason I love these shows that are almost ads for Sidekick. They remind me cooking for myself is worthwhile, which is a reminder I need every now and again.
Amazing video as always guys! And i agree with Barry and Spaff, there's nothing wrong with takeaway once a month or so, they really deliver, but i really prefer making my own meals, you guys have really helped me level up my game!
Being able to learn to cook at home that you can get from a restaurant is priceless. I love cooking with my wok and a high BTU burner to get that char taste.
I enjoyed the vid, but for a truly fair comparison, have a normal cook a Sidekick recipe against the delivery clock. I mean, Ben's chopping alone means his times are really not comparable to the average user... (That said, I've been using the app for a few months now, and it's just as great as the guys say, everyone go get it.)
One thing, with some Asian dishes, they are going to be quicker to put together & cook. So the delivery time will be a larger proportion of the time. Though a restaurant will have less assembly time (on the whole than a home cook) as they do their prep in advance. Would you beat a pizzeria if you had to prep & rest your dough? Would an Indian restaurant have a more complex sauce as it had been mouldering for a couple of days to get the flavour right? But i get the point, because I tend to plan my meals or have enough of a pantry & fridge of ingredients that I can put a good meal together quicker than most delivery places can get to me. (And a lot cheaper too).
Ben. Ales it look so easy as he just flies through the prep. But even with my poor knife skills this came together for me in less than 1/2 an hour. Watching the channel definitely gives me more confidence to cook at home
I'd say 10 times out of 10 when I order takeaway, I don't have the stuff in to make it so when you add the time taken to go to the shop as well, takeaway is definitely faster.
@@annother3350 Not everyone does a weekly shop. Some shop more often or less, or as needed. Sometimes people change what they want part way through the week (people can say plan all you want but that doesn't work for every person either).
@@wombat4583 I've spent enough time on universal credit in the past to know that you can easily plan and do a weekly shop in order to minimise waste and expense and still eat well.
It really IS a good app! Keep plugging it! It’s a terrific way to fight the boredom that daily cooking is plagued with. All the thinking, testing and planning has been done - all that’s left is the shopping and cooking (and the clean up, but there has to be some minor inconvenience).
In all fairness: 1: Ben's timer started with a mis-en-place, so that's probably another 2-3 minutes of finding and portioning the various ingredients that would normally be added. You don't have just the right amount of vegetables and pork mince laying around on your kitchen counter all day. 2: It all depends on how close you live to the place making the food. 3: It's also a matter of feasability. The restaurant can get away with having a large assortment of ingredients in store because they may have dozends of different dishes and hundreds of orders throughout a week, so putting a dish on the menu that's gonna use 15 different ingredients isn't gonna be an issue, it's all in store and it all gets used. If I wanted to make the same dish at home, I'd have to buy these 15 different ingredients, none of which are likely sold in amounts corresponding to the portions I'm looking to make, meaning I'm gonna have loads of leftovers to be used up in other dishes later down the line, meaning if I want a more complex dish, it will determine what I am going to be eating for the rest of the week. 4: Ordering takeaway may still save time because whilst it may or may not be quicker than making it at home (and mind you, noodle dishes like this are generally very quick to make and therefore put the experiment in favour of homemade, but other dishes have components with long prep times that the restaurant is going to have ready whereas you will not unless you've been planning this dish) because however much time it takes to arrive, it's not time you spend cooking. If you've got a busy schedule and are looking to use every minute you got, it doesn't matter how long the food takes to be delivered, it's still gonna take less of your time out of that schedule.
Ben's timer started with Mis-en-place, but thier timer started with everyone having already decided what they want, slogged through the app's processes, and putting thier info in. Which personally always takes far longer, even without including how long ben just stood around talking while the timer was going. Yes, though it also depends on how far your DRIVER is from the food and if they're picking up multiple things from the same restaurant absolutely correct, that's personally the main reason I eat out. True, depending. Everyone I know spends so much time figuring out what they want and ordering it that they've usually wasted just as much time as cooking something quick themselves.
Shopping + mis-en-place is way more time than deciding and ordering, sure everyone says "kitchen staples" but what % is really that? Too many times these sort of take out vs cooking segments miss the thinking ahead portion of cooking a meal in my opinion.
Also, Ben should start after working a 10-hour shift in a busy restaurant. Would be quite interesting to see how much energy to cook he still has left at that point.
@HenryLoenwind: you say that like he isn’t a chef…like, a chef who has inevitably worked as a chef in many places before Sorted or possibly even during Sorted, and has inevitably carried many a ten hour shift. He’s not being presumptuous - he’s just showing that it can be done. And frankly also advertising their fancy app a bit, but there’s nothing wrong with the hustle.
great video! we need more of these chef vs takeaways! i'd love to see the planning aspect factored in as jaime mentioned at the end: maybe have ebbers start at the supermarket?? it's almost always going to be no contest for takeaway vs chef when you have all your ingredients right beside your counter.
True, but they also didn't factor in the time of figuring out where to eat, what to get, and actually ordering/paying. Which I know for me often takes at least 15 minutes, usually much longer if there's other people involved. Taking out the prep time of both seems fair.
I’ve been super ill for coming up to 2 weeks and barely eaten anything in that time, so really hoping your video today makes me super hungry and inspired to eat! Good luck Ben!
Can we just talk about the oh so casual but absolute FLEX Ben does about the 3 minute mark? Looking over at the boys talking away while chop chop chop chop chop extra sharp knife super speed dice? I do that I'm pausing as I chop or looking at the board not the person. Ebbers!
Okay... this is my first Sorted video. And I'm so excited about the sidekick app! I have such issues with meal prep and making decisions on what to eat, what I can make, what I can buy, etc. then, making the recipe takes forever because I have to keep checking it and reading it. I can't wait to try this app!
This overlooks a rather significant aspect of the ease of ordering in - shopping. You already had all the stuff you needed to make the dish (obviously), but not everyone does. If I wanted what you just made, I'd need to buy pretty much every ingredient because I don't have them lying around. And since ordering in is typically a spur of the moment decision, you'd then need to take the time to decide what you'd want, figure out the ingredients, figure out what you needed and then go shopping for it before you can even start cooking. And if you time it badly, you can easily spend half an hour just queueing in the shop. That being said - excellent video.
Jamie: Go for a family trip to bala lake railway next summer! It's right in the path of the mach loop, lots of really nice B&Bs to stay in, a nice quaint high street with good restaurants, there's a pub in llanuwchllyn that serves meat all from their own farm, lots of hiking routes, right next to snowdon! So many things to do, and it's right next to the largest natural lake in Wales!
£15 for a delivered cow main, that took around 30 minutes to get to location. £5 for a home meal, that took 15 minutes to make and gained more out of a portion. Home made is also a healthier version. Thanks guys, can we have more videos around these sorts of topics please? 🙏😎👊
I don't think it's really fair to compare the times, because it will vary depending on how close to the takeaway you live. Barry said the actual cooking time was shown as 15 minutes, so if you lived next door it wouldn't actually take any longer and you could be doing something else while you're waiting, which you can't do if you're cooking. Plus, Ben is a trained chef - I don't have any problems following a recipe, but it always takes me significantly longer than it says it will. Apart from that I do agree with the message of the video - takeaways should be seen as more of a special treat than an everyday convenience, but that doesn't mean you can't eat interesting food the rest of the time.
@@kaspianepps7946I agree with always taking longer to make a recipe than it claims. I generally say 2-3 times longer than the stated time at minimum to figure out how long I'll need on the recipe
I'm also not sure about the price they're claiming. I don't know about the market in England, but the meat alone is already at least half of the £5 and spinach isn't particularly cheap either..
@@peruman95 There have been price increases recently, but most foods are much cheaper in the UK than the US. Tesco has 500g of pork mince for £3, the recipe uses 250g so £1.50 (the idea of the app is that it gives you a shopping list for three meals with no food waste). That being said £15 for one dish is definitely London prices - I'd expect to spend more than £5 for takeaway with delivery, but not that much.
That's one of the reasons why channel 4 should call him onto WILTY, that man is just a box of mystery. No one would know if he's telling the truth, or if he's making it up that Spain once declared a war on him.
I love how Sorted has picked up this from Bon Appetit, because this is such a better channel for cooking, AND for food! Would love to see what Kush and Slater can do in the kitchen under pressure like this, too!
@@skilletborne Absolutely, to me at least. Bon Appetit was so fun to watch & follow before covid and even a little after the end of the pandemic. They had talented chefs at the handful, and great ideas/shows; they just didn't pay fairly (from what I heard.)
I know that Ben knows what he's doing, and the technique makes it so he can't cut himself but watching him use that knife without looking at it always gives me the heebie-jeebies.
I am happy cooking noodles like that with the wok char taste 2 ways since i dont have a gas stove is 1.using my portable butane/propane (propane outside because of fumes) stove with my wok. Or 2. use the high btu propane burner out on the porch with my wok. I do make a good Asian street noodle. Also with the portable stove i can fit it with a hot plate to cook up Korean BBQ. Maybe you should try using the portable butane burners to cook up wok noodles or other things like the hot plate for Korean BBQ.
Love you guys! Been down with the flu for the past few days and your content has REALLY helped me! Binging you is always a treat! As is a new video! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Depending on the place you get your food from sometimes the home made tastes better anyway. There are so many quick and easy pasta dishes a person can make and it’s so easy to use the basic celery, carrot, onions and tomato combo in so many dishes.
It would have been interesting to see a fairer test on both the time and cost fronts, starting both options from a baseline of 'I haven't done any planning' and using a Chop-chop/Getir type grocery delivery service before cooking.
To be fair, they do talk about planning in the video - I think what they were saying was that it should be a concious choice to get a takeaway, not something you do because you've just realised you don't have anything in the fridge and you can't be bothered to go to the supermarket.
Just tried this recipe and it was great! At first, I was really worried when I added my fish sauce (it smelled sooooooo fishy, I thought it turned bad!) but at the end, the dish tasted amazing! and so quick to do! thank you for sharing the recipe!
I'd argue that almost never when takeaway is the choice is the operative factor time from when I start thinking of food to getting food. That is far more likely to be the case with picking up fast food, microwavable instant dinners, grabbing a prepackaged meal at a supermarket, eating cheese and crackers, etc. What wasn't really weighed here was the difference in energy and time spent actively doing something, which is what takeaway is largely about by my reckoning. I can sit down order something and then start working which I can't do when I'm cooking in the kitchen. Or if I'm too emotionally or physically drained because of depression or events during the day I can be relaxing and unwinding which again isn't my experience in the kitchen where I need to be mentally and physically focused(to some degree) to prevent injury/accident. I don't think cooking is a bad thing I do plenty of lazy level cooking when I do have the energy for it but I've also known plenty of people that say shit like "Oh just cook up something instead." as an answer to people who use delivery apps because of reasons that aren't respected.
This is brilliant! I remember jamie oliver doing something similar on stage in a show. With a pizza from scratch, dough and all and the deliveryguy walking onto stage with his pizza haha. Bens dish looks tasty AF!
Love a race the delivery challenge! 😁 Just wanted to remind you that some of us order delivery because of health issues or disabilities. A little kindness for those of us who can’t cook as much as we’d like to is always appreciated. 🙂
Yeah that was the one part I didn't like about this video. Barry saying "you might have a problem" came off as accidentally a little ableist. Still loved the dish though! Looks delicious.
@@pandorascrueltyI think he meant as in, "you have an addiction" to takeout (jokingly). I don't believe any ableist theme was within his realm of thought.
I have a variable condition so some days I feel great and will happily spend hours cooking, other days fatigue/pain/loss of balance etc make it impossible. It would be really interesting to see a video where they show how to make a few complex recipes more accessible, perhaps by using a slow cooker for example but not just for a bog standard stew.
@@clusterbungle I feel ya! I have similar issues. I’d definitely love some genuine short cut, minimal effort examples too. Like I’ll sometimes make a quick hainanese chicken rice in the rice cooker (throw chicken, rice, jar of hainanese chicken paste and water in the rice cooker and walk away basically!)
Great video! If you do this again, I think you should also account for the time it takes to pop into the shop. Ordering takeout is usually done for a certain type of cuisine or because the fridge is running low and planning has gone out the window.
As someone who cut my finger last night while concentrating on only cutting veggies, I’m amazed Ebbers can casually have a conversation while chopping that quickly.
Suggestion to get Wok Hei at home (learned from Kenji Lopez Alt - Sorted US visit perhaps? :) Use a butane torch in your wok/ pan while stir frying. Adds a hint of char.
I like this but what if you made the same meal from scratch including a shopping trip for ingredients and see if you can beat the time and match the taste on the fly ? Love the content x
This as a series using two different qualities of orders, like upscale delivery and cheap as possible delivery (or pick up from food truck), chef vs normal. No recipe formulation for the normal just web search a easy to follow recipe, it needs to be as close as possible to the delivery dish from different food types. pizza would be a vastly different outcome than tacos and burritos. i feel the cooking process should be similar to the order too but resting/proofing times where no work is done to a dish is not counted. would be a blast seeing the differences between the meals and really hit home on how much time or money you can save between the ways we all eat.
Great video as always. But when comparing cooking vs takeaway I always find it to be very unfair for the takeaway, as I order takeaway when I don't have the things to cook at home. So saying a Speed comparison should always be the chef/cook has to go to the shop/supermarket first. Because only then is it comparable in terms of speed. Completly with dinner rush time for the restaurants.
yeah but like the guys mentioned, it all comes down to planning and how often you order. I think this comparison is made for the people who mindlessly order takeaways due to laziness / the lack of planning or think that cooking takes a long time, not for the people who order every now and again.
Great Video! Just one thing I’d like to mention when you guys do these timed food challenges and then tell us how long it takes to cook. You always have all the ingredients and equipments out and also measured before you start cooking/ start the timer. So it’s not really a precise time. If I want to cook something I have to go to the kitchen, take out the ingredients and equipment and then start to cook, so it takes longer then what you guys sometimes claim. Like for example a ”15 minute Battle”
Plus wash the veg, get the meat out and leave it a while so you aren't cooking from fridge temp, waiting for pans etc to heat up... It's these things that turn a 20 Minute cook into 40
yeah but this is for entertainment purposes, and it would be far less entertaining to watch them run into the kitchen to get and wash stuff and run back, so from a production pov this current method is the best
@@ericchants idk how you manage to double the time... washing the veg takes a few seconds per thing, taking the meat out of the fridge does not really take time at all and you can leave it for a sec whilst you do smth else, on induction and gas (at least) pans heat up in half a minute, etc.
I swear I could listen to Ben talk about food and cooking all day. I've had some teachers that bore me, but learning stuff from Sorted is always fun! I have 2 suggestions though. First, would love to see a beginner series. I know you guys have been around for a while and I'm making my way through your 13 years of episodes, but I have a lot of beginner/normal questions. When do you add aromats? How do you not burn stuff in the pan? Those kinds of things, what cheffy tips can you give to normals you aren't good at cooking lol Second, for your Sidekick app, would love to see a new category for "no leftovers" recipe packs. No offense, but your British portions are huge. My husband and I can never eat a two portion meal without having leftovers and leftovers always go to waste in our house. Or maybe a video on how to scale down a recipe from 2 portions to 1?
For me delivery means I can hit go on the app, then hop in the shower and do my dishes from the morning, without having mor dishes after. Its for when after a long day of physical labour I just don't have the energy to cook and do dishes. It's mainly the dishes I just hate.
It would be interesting (and perhaps more fair?) to account for the time it takes to prep the meal; choose the meal based on ingredients at home, bring out the tools etc as well as maybe letting a normal cook? Ben having everything laid out and already decided is basically doping..!
For a true test, Ebbers needed to start with NOTHING prepped. No pans out, no kettle boiling, nothing setup. They order, he walks into the kitchen to start.
In the US there is now a big thing with ordering ahead and picking it up from the restaurant, then taking it home. So you can order while your at work, pick it up on the way home and eat at home.
Years ago, Bon Appetit had a series based on this same concept (Taking on Takeout). I don't think their chefs ever managed to beat the delivery (and they eventually gave up on that part of the concept a few episodes before they dropped the series).
Joshua Weissman does a similar concept too where he'll not only race them on time but as to who makes the better version of the meal. He usually wins on both counts, but quite often its quite sad food like burgers.
I think that if you only consider the timing and spending aspect of cooking… at home is always better. But what about the planning required, and the doing after a full day of working and commuting… sometimes o red ring on the way and getting it as you arrive is simply too tempting.
I love cooking, but once a month I do like to treat myself to a takeaway. An older friend said to me when I started earning money, that one of the things he did was that he'd buy himself a treat out of his pay-packet. It can be something small & inexpensive, but it makes earning that money worthwhile, rather than just earning to live. I've taken that on-board & it does make a difference. It doesn't have to be a takeaway. Living rurally delivery can be expensive & I'm limited on who can deliver to my area. So sometimes its a fancy ingredient or spice, a book, or whatever takes my fancy. So yeah I can see a subscription falling into the category of a treat to myself.
does anyone know the frying pan Ben was using to cook the meal in? looks like a realy good pan to have on hand. :) love these videos makes you think about putting effort in for dinner or sit and wait for takeaway that might be cold when delivered.
Love how Barry throws on his Arsenal shirt when they're joint top of the league. Where was it when they were doing crap eh?! 🤣 just kidding, love the vid
I feel like this kind of video often ends up unfortunately having the sideeffect of villanizing takeaways, but a lot of us folks really just don't have great kitchens or don't have anything in to make a nice meal or stuff like that. Sure, it is often possible, but it's not like we have Ben in there with us to tell us how our leftover hot sauce and cheddar cheese that may or may not have gone out of date can go with our slightly off garlic and leefy greens. I think it's just different strokes for different folks at different times. Sometimes we just want dinner and then we'll eff off to the shop in the morning.
Yeah, one of the main reasons I've avoided sidekick is because UK package sizes are different. I know there are plenty of things that I'll be able to chuck in the whole package even though it's too much or short it a little and still have it taste good, but that's really a second time through kind of thing. What am I going to do with dozens of partial packages of ingredients that I don't know how to cook and don't have recipes for? If Sidekick let you plug in the ingredients you do have and returned recipes that closely resemble what you have, that would be the thing for me.
I don't think this painted takeaways in a negative light at all Don't play the bad kitchen card tho, this dish used 1 hob, 1 knife, a chopping board, and mostly store cupboard ingredients. It's okay to be exhausted, to be a novice, to be disabled, or to have failed to plan ahead The world sucks and there's no shame in throwing up your hands and ordering a curry
When I do UberEats, I usually do it on my way home it its there roughly when I arrive. I put instructions to leave it at the door. So in that regard, delivery will always be faster for me.
Takeaway restaurants have mise en place Ebers seemed to be doing everything at once which is a bit of a disadvantage. I know some people dont have time for mise en place but i find it helps a lot.
How easy is sidekick to use if you are with 3 in a household and 1 is a vegetarian. Currently is replace meat in recipes for the vegetarian and leave it in for the others....?
I think cost should be included and you will find that home cooked (if you know how to cook it) is cheaper, more time consuming remember you still have to do the dishes, and tastes better (because if you are cooking you know how you like it to taste so spices and if you like heat with hot peppers of some kind what level and in reality food apps saves on labor and speed but you lose quality of the food and monetary costs.
Ben starting by explaining how the delivery might be faster then him since it’s neither lunch nor dinner time is just gold! 😂
He does have a fair point. There's a difference between ordering take-out on a sunday during dinnertime and getting something fast because you forgot to have lunch in the middle of the week and now it's 2 pm.
Well, the man doesn't order take out, so he doesn't know that take out is usually a minimum of 30 or so minutes any given time.
There's a whole economy thing about people who work with delivery who need to make a living, but the other side of the argument is that, most people don't have £15 to pay for a dish of noodles. Which is quite outrageous.
@@lewismaddock1654not in London. Standard delivery time is 15 mins
@@andyh7777 Maybe. But this wasn't the case in this example, and during high request hours, and most of Sorted's target audience don't live in London.
@@lewismaddock1654 I don't live in London and it's usually less than half an hour, same with other places I've lived. Even when I lived in a village (takeaway was in the nearest town 15 minutes drive away) on a Saturday night it was 40 minutes at most.
I love videos like these. Just a chance for Ebbers to flex his chef skills - in case we've forgotten what a great chef he is. He chopped vegetables without looking at the board, beautifully plated up 2 servings of his dish much faster than the takeaway - but he also explained all the steps along the way, cleaned the kitchen and was cool as a cucumber the entire time. Sure, it plugged the app, but it also really drove the point home, made me feel bad for not cooking at home more often, and I know at least I'm gonna think twice before I order takeaway next time.
It's fun chopping veg while making eye contact with whomever you're talking too. It is a bit of a flex, but its also fun watching their eyes dart down nervously expecting to see you've chopped your fingers off. 🔪🧅🤚
And you get the joy of cooking.
Yes there's that too@@eatdirtmofo
I love cooking,
I'm an 'engineer', so all day long i'm adding 'ingredients' and doing timings, (Gant charts)
It's so good to get home and just cook something. Anything.
It's therapy.
@@eatdirtmofo Yeah, when I had a job that meant dealing with the public all day I'd just get in the kitchen as soon as I got home. I just wanted half an hour or so, cooking, unwinding & not speaking to anyone. Then I was happy to sit & chat away with my partner for the rest of the evening. (I didn't ignore her when I came through the door or anything, that would be rude; pleasantries were exchanged. But then it was kitchen bound.)
There is one thing the guys didn't touch on which is sometimes the determining factor when ordering out - while the delivery is on it's way you can be _doing something else_.
We usually end up ordering out if we're in the middle of a huge project and my husband is just too busy and/or exhausted to cook
Yea I always am annoyed at the comparisons because when I order take out or delivery it’s almost always I need to go to the store or I’m tired and don’t want to cook which isn’t ever the issue in these videos. Sure if I have all of the ingredients then cooking is way better
True. Also similar with a frozen pizza. With the preheating the owen, and cook time, you could make a dish from scratch instead. Or you could just relax or do other stuff.
Well if you just too busy to cook then cooking is never going to be an option so there's no point comparing
Also... we order out when we have to both shop and cook and have no energy for either.
@@John...44...well there’s no comparison between what they did. Of course making it yourself is cheaper and healthier and whatnot. Delivery is in the conversation for 2 reasons: time, convenience. You do it because you need to do something else in that time, or because you don’t feel like shopping & cooking. That’s why it ended up being a sidekick app ad for “the shopping being done for you” so you can ignore that part and choose cooking, taking out that issue from being a reason you choose not to cook. But they missed the time necessity entirely, and while a good self-promote, a self-promote to consider their findings as accurate/possible is bad.
Sidekick Suggestion: make a section in the app where you can keep a running list of what is in your kitchen (especially useful for ingredients you'll buy lots of and not finish soon, like fish sauce) and then make an algorithm that searches existing Sorted recipes for matches to your store cupboard. Rank the results by highest number of matches, then highlight the ingredients that match. Ingredients where you have the amount or more should be highlighted in green. Ingredients you don't have enough of should be highlighted in yellow. Ingredients you have listed that you are allergic to should be highlighted in red. Ingredients you don't have are unhighlighted.
The meal packs are great, but if the package sizes are different or I have leftover ingredients from making one of my own recipes (like half an onion and a pint of cream), it doesn't really help me find uses for these things. Or I have all the ingredients and just don't realize I could make something with them; like flour, eggs, olive oil, and whole garlic are frequently in my kitchen, but I would never think to make fresh Aglio e olio.
Great great suggestion
+++++
Ótima sugestão, eu vi eles usando chat gpt para procurar receitas com os ingredientes que tem em mãos, pode ajudar.
This is such a great idea! Basically teaching/helping normals to keep an inventory similar to a restaurant. I bet a lot of food waste happens in the pantry when canned food expires or an open box of something has gone stale
Yeah something like that is needed. It would also be nice if there is some recommendations of packs that have similar ingredients
I really appreciate that you guys still discussed the merits of the takeout dish. Being able to have a single portion of something you know would be expensive to cook at home and would generate an overwhelming amount of leftovers is something I wish more people considered when doing these challenges. Also the fact that I need the items on hand ahead of time in order to truly make cooking feel more convenient than ordering. I find typically ordering out, especially delivery, stems from feeling overwhelmed in some capacity and the lack of willingness to leave my house. And as someone else mentioned, sometimes you’re in the middle of something and to stop and cook for anything longer than 15 mins or to cook something that requires attention and isn’t a throw it in and forget about it type dish just doesn’t feel possible.
Have you tried doing an online shop? A lot of these delivery apps also do groceries for smaller shops.
That might give you more energy for the actual cooking. You can also buy ingredients that don't need any prep, e.g. pre-chopped veg; frozen peas, sweetcorn, etc; dried carbs like pasta, noodles or cous cous (just needs boiling water pouring over and leaving for 5 mins); tinned goods like tuna and tomatoes; healthy freezer foods like fish fingers.
You can also buy good (restaurant) quality ready meals for less than the price of a takeaway in most supermarkets, which are great for days where cooking really isn't going to happen.
It always amazes me how chefs can go godspeed with a knife while looking away and casually chatting with someone 😮
When you’ve got the claw movement down it’s very easy!
I desperately want a video that's just the chefs chopping things. Not even like a knife lesson or a voiceover or anything, I just want to watch them chop things So Well. It scratches my brain in all the right places.
Yeah I'm a garlic press user cause I am so bad an mincing garlic. It's so small, just how 😅
@@ST-vt4nu Practice. I started just using garlic in everything. Start slow and focus on the technique, once you can keep your hand steady you can start to increase speed. Oh and a really sharp knife, I feel like not having a sharp knife is probably 75% of peoples issue with knife skills.
@@emanresu8968 i put garlic in everything, but I just use a garlic press most of the time. I use a lot of garlic and Im not mincing 6 cloves by hand when I can just garlic press them in seconds 😅 I know i wont learn like this, but oh well 😂
As someone who is a trained chef there are two styles of cooking I will consistently go out to eat/order takeout because it is essentially impossible to do them at home unless you have special equipment. Woks and tandoors. Other than that I can cook almost anything if I can find the ingredients.
Amateurs can certainly learn to cook their favorite dishes/cuisines if they put in some effort as well.
Dim Sum and Tapas are "restaurant foods" for me, because making ten different, small dishes at home is quite inefficient.
For me it’s anything that needs to be deep fried, I can’t stand the smell at home.
All of the above plus Ramen. I'm working on Ramen but it is a PAIN.
Woks, deep fryers, pizza ovens... Also, baked goods. I just don't have the energy for croissants most of the time. Resting and then individually cooking pita bread is exhausting. There's a lot that just isn't enjoyable or worthwhile to make at home compared to the results you get.
@@totalvoid6234 Are you making noodles? Making ramen noodles at home is possible I did it once as an experiment but it's an all day project and there's a step with some pretty unpleasant substances. I'd just buy the noodles already made.
Other than that ramen ingredients are pretty common items in Japanese cuisine. I guess the one most unusual in the west is pork stock as we don't make pork stock a lot and Japanese stock making is sort of tedious but it is not hard just another all day thing.
Please have a night out in London with Ben! New flat, new restaurants, and same “old” mates!
yes! New big night out season!
yaaaassss pleeeease
Legend has it, the hob is still on…
Something I learned from J. Kenji-Lopez alt. that totally changed homemade stir-fries for me is using a blowtorch to add that wok(ish) char and flavor Ben mentioned might be missing from his dish. Takes 30 seconds, and what a difference!
If you do it yourself you also have the cleanup, etc. which needs to be added timewise. And having a chef with his cutting skills, etc. do it, also skews the result for time needed to make the dish. There is enough reasons to not order takeout (most of all cost), you do not need to add artifical imbalances ;-)
Ben eats out in London once or twice a week!? I’m genuinely glad to hear Sorted food is financially thriving!
Dumpster diving is free :)
It really depends where you are going, since he mentioned socializing it's possible he is going to the pub. Even here in the states there are small pubs and hole-in-the-wall restaurants that offer good food for cheap. Although the 1 around where I live happens to be hangout of a biker gang great food but can be a bit offputting for some.
This doesn't take into account one of the big strengths of ordering out, which is that everyone can get something different and it still takes about the same amount of time. Ebbers would have much more trouble making 3 or 4 dishes and beating the delivery than when he's making one.
Thing is though, unless you're buying for friends that's a strange scenario. If you're cooking as a couple just eat the same dish
@@midgetwars1not really if you’re all at home as a get together you can easily order different stuff
What I love about this video, is that they don't slag off the restaurants. They actually say it's good.
Other people who do this Vs takeaway usually says theirs is much better, undermining hard working restaurant cooks, who actually do this for a living, and have more practice.
Hum, I feel like the "order" time should have included the time you take to decide though ! Because that can make ordering take longer than cooking 😂
Hahaha very true.
They also didn't include the time to get out and portion the ingredients, so I'd call it even.
My family has recently started using sidekick, we love that there are recipes that are quick, we live in the country outside delivery areas so we've been doing the basic recipes using ingredients from the garden and freezer when we are too tired to go shopping. Find 2 portions feed 4 of us most times.
Amazing work guys. Barry and Jamie are so silly when together 😎😂
Tell me about it
@@SortedFoodBarry and Jamie are so silly together 😉
Well, I have the same problem cooking up things for dinner. You guys could show us some meals that freeze well after cooking :) Your creativity would surely allow for more than bolognese, chili and goulash in regards to that :)
I order the food on my way home so it arrives at the same time as I do. I love cooking but some days takeaways take the stress out of adding more things to do.
I'll be honest, probably will never get your app, subscriptions online scare me.
However, for some reason I love these shows that are almost ads for Sidekick.
They remind me cooking for myself is worthwhile, which is a reminder I need every now and again.
The Pluggy Plug Song is like the cherry to the cake of this video. 🎂
Amazing video as always guys! And i agree with Barry and Spaff, there's nothing wrong with takeaway once a month or so, they really deliver, but i really prefer making my own meals, you guys have really helped me level up my game!
Couldn't agree more!
@@SortedFoodThanks!😊😊😊
Being able to learn to cook at home that you can get from a restaurant is priceless. I love cooking with my wok and a high BTU burner to get that char taste.
I enjoyed the vid, but for a truly fair comparison, have a normal cook a Sidekick recipe against the delivery clock. I mean, Ben's chopping alone means his times are really not comparable to the average user... (That said, I've been using the app for a few months now, and it's just as great as the guys say, everyone go get it.)
Fair enough! We’ll see what we can do 😜
It'll still be faster. Most sidekick recipes take me around half an hour to make. Delivery usually doesn't happen in a 30 minute window.
One thing, with some Asian dishes, they are going to be quicker to put together & cook. So the delivery time will be a larger proportion of the time. Though a restaurant will have less assembly time (on the whole than a home cook) as they do their prep in advance. Would you beat a pizzeria if you had to prep & rest your dough? Would an Indian restaurant have a more complex sauce as it had been mouldering for a couple of days to get the flavour right? But i get the point, because I tend to plan my meals or have enough of a pantry & fridge of ingredients that I can put a good meal together quicker than most delivery places can get to me. (And a lot cheaper too).
Ben. Ales it look so easy as he just flies through the prep. But even with my poor knife skills this came together for me in less than 1/2 an hour. Watching the channel definitely gives me more confidence to cook at home
I'd say 10 times out of 10 when I order takeaway, I don't have the stuff in to make it so when you add the time taken to go to the shop as well, takeaway is definitely faster.
You buy the food when you're shopping for essential items every week like toilet rolls so it takes up hardly any time
@@annother3350 Not everyone does a weekly shop. Some shop more often or less, or as needed. Sometimes people change what they want part way through the week (people can say plan all you want but that doesn't work for every person either).
@@wombat4583 I've spent enough time on universal credit in the past to know that you can easily plan and do a weekly shop in order to minimise waste and expense and still eat well.
It really IS a good app! Keep plugging it! It’s a terrific way to fight the boredom that daily cooking is plagued with. All the thinking, testing and planning has been done - all that’s left is the shopping and cooking (and the clean up, but there has to be some minor inconvenience).
Jamie jamming to the Bluey theme just made my day.
In all fairness:
1: Ben's timer started with a mis-en-place, so that's probably another 2-3 minutes of finding and portioning the various ingredients that would normally be added. You don't have just the right amount of vegetables and pork mince laying around on your kitchen counter all day.
2: It all depends on how close you live to the place making the food.
3: It's also a matter of feasability. The restaurant can get away with having a large assortment of ingredients in store because they may have dozends of different dishes and hundreds of orders throughout a week, so putting a dish on the menu that's gonna use 15 different ingredients isn't gonna be an issue, it's all in store and it all gets used. If I wanted to make the same dish at home, I'd have to buy these 15 different ingredients, none of which are likely sold in amounts corresponding to the portions I'm looking to make, meaning I'm gonna have loads of leftovers to be used up in other dishes later down the line, meaning if I want a more complex dish, it will determine what I am going to be eating for the rest of the week.
4: Ordering takeaway may still save time because whilst it may or may not be quicker than making it at home (and mind you, noodle dishes like this are generally very quick to make and therefore put the experiment in favour of homemade, but other dishes have components with long prep times that the restaurant is going to have ready whereas you will not unless you've been planning this dish) because however much time it takes to arrive, it's not time you spend cooking. If you've got a busy schedule and are looking to use every minute you got, it doesn't matter how long the food takes to be delivered, it's still gonna take less of your time out of that schedule.
Ben's timer started with Mis-en-place, but thier timer started with everyone having already decided what they want, slogged through the app's processes, and putting thier info in. Which personally always takes far longer, even without including how long ben just stood around talking while the timer was going.
Yes, though it also depends on how far your DRIVER is from the food and if they're picking up multiple things from the same restaurant
absolutely correct, that's personally the main reason I eat out.
True, depending. Everyone I know spends so much time figuring out what they want and ordering it that they've usually wasted just as much time as cooking something quick themselves.
Shopping + mis-en-place is way more time than deciding and ordering, sure everyone says "kitchen staples" but what % is really that?
Too many times these sort of take out vs cooking segments miss the thinking ahead portion of cooking a meal in my opinion.
Indeed. They did give Ben a really quick and easy dish to make. For me usually ifbIborder food it's Take away on the way home from work
Also, Ben should start after working a 10-hour shift in a busy restaurant. Would be quite interesting to see how much energy to cook he still has left at that point.
@HenryLoenwind: you say that like he isn’t a chef…like, a chef who has inevitably worked as a chef in many places before Sorted or possibly even during Sorted, and has inevitably carried many a ten hour shift.
He’s not being presumptuous - he’s just showing that it can be done. And frankly also advertising their fancy app a bit, but there’s nothing wrong with the hustle.
great video! we need more of these chef vs takeaways! i'd love to see the planning aspect factored in as jaime mentioned at the end: maybe have ebbers start at the supermarket?? it's almost always going to be no contest for takeaway vs chef when you have all your ingredients right beside your counter.
True, but they also didn't factor in the time of figuring out where to eat, what to get, and actually ordering/paying. Which I know for me often takes at least 15 minutes, usually much longer if there's other people involved. Taking out the prep time of both seems fair.
I'd love to see more of this! Side-by-side comparisons are great!
I’ve been super ill for coming up to 2 weeks and barely eaten anything in that time, so really hoping your video today makes me super hungry and inspired to eat! Good luck Ben!
Hope you feel better
Oh no! Get well soon!
That sucks! Hope you feel better soon!❤
Congee is really nice when sick! They have a good recipe for that.
Can we just talk about the oh so casual but absolute FLEX Ben does about the 3 minute mark? Looking over at the boys talking away while chop chop chop chop chop extra sharp knife super speed dice? I do that I'm pausing as I chop or looking at the board not the person. Ebbers!
Okay... this is my first Sorted video. And I'm so excited about the sidekick app! I have such issues with meal prep and making decisions on what to eat, what I can make, what I can buy, etc. then, making the recipe takes forever because I have to keep checking it and reading it. I can't wait to try this app!
This overlooks a rather significant aspect of the ease of ordering in - shopping.
You already had all the stuff you needed to make the dish (obviously), but not everyone does. If I wanted what you just made, I'd need to buy pretty much every ingredient because I don't have them lying around. And since ordering in is typically a spur of the moment decision, you'd then need to take the time to decide what you'd want, figure out the ingredients, figure out what you needed and then go shopping for it before you can even start cooking. And if you time it badly, you can easily spend half an hour just queueing in the shop.
That being said - excellent video.
As a Cambodian I appreciate that the sidekicks app has recipes from all around the world even from a small country as mine and what a great video
Jamie: Go for a family trip to bala lake railway next summer! It's right in the path of the mach loop, lots of really nice B&Bs to stay in, a nice quaint high street with good restaurants, there's a pub in llanuwchllyn that serves meat all from their own farm, lots of hiking routes, right next to snowdon! So many things to do, and it's right next to the largest natural lake in Wales!
£15 for a delivered cow main, that took around 30 minutes to get to location. £5 for a home meal, that took 15 minutes to make and gained more out of a portion. Home made is also a healthier version. Thanks guys, can we have more videos around these sorts of topics please? 🙏😎👊
I don't think it's really fair to compare the times, because it will vary depending on how close to the takeaway you live. Barry said the actual cooking time was shown as 15 minutes, so if you lived next door it wouldn't actually take any longer and you could be doing something else while you're waiting, which you can't do if you're cooking. Plus, Ben is a trained chef - I don't have any problems following a recipe, but it always takes me significantly longer than it says it will.
Apart from that I do agree with the message of the video - takeaways should be seen as more of a special treat than an everyday convenience, but that doesn't mean you can't eat interesting food the rest of the time.
@@kaspianepps7946I agree with always taking longer to make a recipe than it claims. I generally say 2-3 times longer than the stated time at minimum to figure out how long I'll need on the recipe
I'm also not sure about the price they're claiming. I don't know about the market in England, but the meat alone is already at least half of the £5 and spinach isn't particularly cheap either..
@@peruman95 There have been price increases recently, but most foods are much cheaper in the UK than the US. Tesco has 500g of pork mince for £3, the recipe uses 250g so £1.50 (the idea of the app is that it gives you a shopping list for three meals with no food waste).
That being said £15 for one dish is definitely London prices - I'd expect to spend more than £5 for takeaway with delivery, but not that much.
@@peruman95spinach is very cheap?
Ben stuffing his face while Barry and Jamie plug sidekick was hilarious! _ Cheese & Biscuits when he gets home eh?
Honestly, Jamie watching Bluey while he waits for his food, is so relatable.
This Aussie approves 😂
That's one of the reasons why channel 4 should call him onto WILTY, that man is just a box of mystery. No one would know if he's telling the truth, or if he's making it up that Spain once declared a war on him.
I love how Sorted has picked up this from Bon Appetit, because this is such a better channel for cooking, AND for food!
Would love to see what Kush and Slater can do in the kitchen under pressure like this, too!
I don't believe in competition on social media and youtube, but man, if it was a competition then Sorted beats Bon Appetit hands down
@@skilletborne Absolutely, to me at least. Bon Appetit was so fun to watch & follow before covid and even a little after the end of the pandemic. They had talented chefs at the handful, and great ideas/shows; they just didn't pay fairly (from what I heard.)
Given his record in the burger challenge, Kush would have the meal made and eaten before the others figure out what restaurant to order from XD
I know that Ben knows what he's doing, and the technique makes it so he can't cut himself but watching him use that knife without looking at it always gives me the heebie-jeebies.
I am happy cooking noodles like that with the wok char taste 2 ways since i dont have a gas stove is 1.using my portable butane/propane (propane outside because of fumes) stove with my wok. Or 2. use the high btu propane burner out on the porch with my wok. I do make a good Asian street noodle. Also with the portable stove i can fit it with a hot plate to cook up Korean BBQ. Maybe you should try using the portable butane burners to cook up wok noodles or other things like the hot plate for Korean BBQ.
I watched this video once, then cooked it live with the video tonight. Delicious!
Ben saying 'or she!' just shows what an amazing person he is, along with being a great chef. ❤
Love you guys! Been down with the flu for the past few days and your content has REALLY helped me! Binging you is always a treat! As is a new video! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
Get better soon Daniel! Thanks for watching.
Always 😊😊😊❤❤❤
As someone who gets takeaways often due to being unable to cook due to a disability, this was nice to see.
Depending on the place you get your food from sometimes the home made tastes better anyway.
There are so many quick and easy pasta dishes a person can make and it’s so easy to use the basic celery, carrot, onions and tomato combo in so many dishes.
It would have been interesting to see a fairer test on both the time and cost fronts, starting both options from a baseline of 'I haven't done any planning' and using a Chop-chop/Getir type grocery delivery service before cooking.
And don't forget about clean up. You now have all those dishes, pans and utensils to wash.
To be fair, they do talk about planning in the video - I think what they were saying was that it should be a concious choice to get a takeaway, not something you do because you've just realised you don't have anything in the fridge and you can't be bothered to go to the supermarket.
Just tried this recipe and it was great! At first, I was really worried when I added my fish sauce (it smelled sooooooo fishy, I thought it turned bad!) but at the end, the dish tasted amazing! and so quick to do! thank you for sharing the recipe!
plug plug plug plugy plug plug (loved when mike was still singing that haha)
I know Ben wouldn't let us down, now one hour until midnight and I'm craving stir fried noodles
Ahhhhh sorry about that 🤣
I'd argue that almost never when takeaway is the choice is the operative factor time from when I start thinking of food to getting food.
That is far more likely to be the case with picking up fast food, microwavable instant dinners, grabbing a prepackaged meal at a supermarket, eating cheese and crackers, etc. What wasn't really weighed here was the difference in energy and time spent actively doing something, which is what takeaway is largely about by my reckoning. I can sit down order something and then start working which I can't do when I'm cooking in the kitchen. Or if I'm too emotionally or physically drained because of depression or events during the day I can be relaxing and unwinding which again isn't my experience in the kitchen where I need to be mentally and physically focused(to some degree) to prevent injury/accident.
I don't think cooking is a bad thing I do plenty of lazy level cooking when I do have the energy for it but I've also known plenty of people that say shit like "Oh just cook up something instead." as an answer to people who use delivery apps because of reasons that aren't respected.
This is brilliant! I remember jamie oliver doing something similar on stage in a show. With a pizza from scratch, dough and all and the deliveryguy walking onto stage with his pizza haha.
Bens dish looks tasty AF!
Love a race the delivery challenge! 😁
Just wanted to remind you that some of us order delivery because of health issues or disabilities. A little kindness for those of us who can’t cook as much as we’d like to is always appreciated. 🙂
Yeah that was the one part I didn't like about this video. Barry saying "you might have a problem" came off as accidentally a little ableist.
Still loved the dish though! Looks delicious.
@@pandorascrueltyI think he meant as in, "you have an addiction" to takeout (jokingly). I don't believe any ableist theme was within his realm of thought.
I have a variable condition so some days I feel great and will happily spend hours cooking, other days fatigue/pain/loss of balance etc make it impossible. It would be really interesting to see a video where they show how to make a few complex recipes more accessible, perhaps by using a slow cooker for example but not just for a bog standard stew.
@@clusterbungle I feel ya! I have similar issues. I’d definitely love some genuine short cut, minimal effort examples too. Like I’ll sometimes make a quick hainanese chicken rice in the rice cooker (throw chicken, rice, jar of hainanese chicken paste and water in the rice cooker and walk away basically!)
@@_nquisitor_ ooh that sounds delicious! :)
Hey! Baz with the gunners jersey! Love it!
Great video! If you do this again, I think you should also account for the time it takes to pop into the shop. Ordering takeout is usually done for a certain type of cuisine or because the fridge is running low and planning has gone out the window.
BARRY WITH ARSENAL'S THIRD KIT, GOT TO LOVE HIM EVEN MORE !!!!
As someone who cut my finger last night while concentrating on only cutting veggies, I’m amazed Ebbers can casually have a conversation while chopping that quickly.
It's so cool watching a chef make something you've cooked at home for dinner
I love this as a concept - great content -thanks team!
Suggestion to get Wok Hei at home (learned from Kenji Lopez Alt - Sorted US visit perhaps? :)
Use a butane torch in your wok/ pan while stir frying. Adds a hint of char.
Also have to remember Ben is a trained chef. I also think you should do this again and do the same dish.
This episode idea is brilliant!!! More please!
Bem just casually chatting to the boys blazing through finely slicing garlic cloves without looking. What a boss!
I like this but what if you made the same meal from scratch including a shopping trip for ingredients and see if you can beat the time and match the taste on the fly ? Love the content x
This as a series using two different qualities of orders, like upscale delivery and cheap as possible delivery (or pick up from food truck), chef vs normal. No recipe formulation for the normal just web search a easy to follow recipe, it needs to be as close as possible to the delivery dish from different food types. pizza would be a vastly different outcome than tacos and burritos. i feel the cooking process should be similar to the order too but resting/proofing times where no work is done to a dish is not counted. would be a blast seeing the differences between the meals and really hit home on how much time or money you can save between the ways we all eat.
Great video as always. But when comparing cooking vs takeaway I always find it to be very unfair for the takeaway, as I order takeaway when I don't have the things to cook at home. So saying a Speed comparison should always be the chef/cook has to go to the shop/supermarket first. Because only then is it comparable in terms of speed. Completly with dinner rush time for the restaurants.
yeah but like the guys mentioned, it all comes down to planning and how often you order. I think this comparison is made for the people who mindlessly order takeaways due to laziness / the lack of planning or think that cooking takes a long time, not for the people who order every now and again.
Great Video! Just one thing I’d like to mention when you guys do these timed food challenges and then tell us how long it takes to cook. You always have all the ingredients and equipments out and also measured before you start cooking/ start the timer. So it’s not really a precise time. If I want to cook something I have to go to the kitchen, take out the ingredients and equipment and then start to cook, so it takes longer then what you guys sometimes claim. Like for example a ”15 minute Battle”
Plus wash the veg, get the meat out and leave it a while so you aren't cooking from fridge temp, waiting for pans etc to heat up... It's these things that turn a 20 Minute cook into 40
yeah but this is for entertainment purposes, and it would be far less entertaining to watch them run into the kitchen to get and wash stuff and run back, so from a production pov this current method is the best
@@ericchants idk how you manage to double the time... washing the veg takes a few seconds per thing, taking the meat out of the fridge does not really take time at all and you can leave it for a sec whilst you do smth else, on induction and gas (at least) pans heat up in half a minute, etc.
I swear I could listen to Ben talk about food and cooking all day. I've had some teachers that bore me, but learning stuff from Sorted is always fun!
I have 2 suggestions though. First, would love to see a beginner series. I know you guys have been around for a while and I'm making my way through your 13 years of episodes, but I have a lot of beginner/normal questions. When do you add aromats? How do you not burn stuff in the pan? Those kinds of things, what cheffy tips can you give to normals you aren't good at cooking lol
Second, for your Sidekick app, would love to see a new category for "no leftovers" recipe packs. No offense, but your British portions are huge. My husband and I can never eat a two portion meal without having leftovers and leftovers always go to waste in our house. Or maybe a video on how to scale down a recipe from 2 portions to 1?
Who aren't good at cooking. Sorry for the spelling error
Should have had Ben run to the shop to get groceries first if you usually get takeaway when you don’t have anything in.
For me delivery means I can hit go on the app, then hop in the shower and do my dishes from the morning, without having mor dishes after. Its for when after a long day of physical labour I just don't have the energy to cook and do dishes. It's mainly the dishes I just hate.
This reminds me of similar videos that Josh Weissman did! Both are such a fun idea!
It would be interesting (and perhaps more fair?) to account for the time it takes to prep the meal; choose the meal based on ingredients at home, bring out the tools etc as well as maybe letting a normal cook? Ben having everything laid out and already decided is basically doping..!
For a true test, Ebbers needed to start with NOTHING prepped. No pans out, no kettle boiling, nothing setup.
They order, he walks into the kitchen to start.
I do love the idea of your app but sadly trying to use it when living outside off the uk isn't easy
Agree. Half the ingredients you use on the show are just not heard of where I live.
5:03 Barry you've left the- oh sorry, force of habit
Kind of wish this had been a more accurate representation of time. Ebber's had a few items that were pre-prepped. The garlic and ginger for example.
Yummmmmmmm I love Singapore noodles 🥰 saw the sauce and thought hmmmm is it? But Ben saying all the meat in there confirmed it hahah
In the US there is now a big thing with ordering ahead and picking it up from the restaurant, then taking it home. So you can order while your at work, pick it up on the way home and eat at home.
Love that Jamies' watching Bluey. Proud Aussie here
Years ago, Bon Appetit had a series based on this same concept (Taking on Takeout). I don't think their chefs ever managed to beat the delivery (and they eventually gave up on that part of the concept a few episodes before they dropped the series).
Joshua Weissman does a similar concept too where he'll not only race them on time but as to who makes the better version of the meal. He usually wins on both counts, but quite often its quite sad food like burgers.
I just did that noodle dish from Sidekick a week ago and it was fantastic!
Excellent plug, by the way.
I think that if you only consider the timing and spending aspect of cooking… at home is always better. But what about the planning required, and the doing after a full day of working and commuting… sometimes o red ring on the way and getting it as you arrive is simply too tempting.
I love cooking, but once a month I do like to treat myself to a takeaway. An older friend said to me when I started earning money, that one of the things he did was that he'd buy himself a treat out of his pay-packet. It can be something small & inexpensive, but it makes earning that money worthwhile, rather than just earning to live. I've taken that on-board & it does make a difference. It doesn't have to be a takeaway. Living rurally delivery can be expensive & I'm limited on who can deliver to my area. So sometimes its a fancy ingredient or spice, a book, or whatever takes my fancy. So yeah I can see a subscription falling into the category of a treat to myself.
We all need a treat now and then 😁
Ebbers effortlessly chopping like a god whilst not even looking and maintaining a conversation will never fail to impress me
does anyone know the frying pan Ben was using to cook the meal in? looks like a realy good pan to have on hand. :)
love these videos makes you think about putting effort in for dinner or sit and wait for takeaway that might be cold when delivered.
Love how Barry throws on his Arsenal shirt when they're joint top of the league. Where was it when they were doing crap eh?! 🤣 just kidding, love the vid
I feel like this kind of video often ends up unfortunately having the sideeffect of villanizing takeaways, but a lot of us folks really just don't have great kitchens or don't have anything in to make a nice meal or stuff like that. Sure, it is often possible, but it's not like we have Ben in there with us to tell us how our leftover hot sauce and cheddar cheese that may or may not have gone out of date can go with our slightly off garlic and leefy greens. I think it's just different strokes for different folks at different times. Sometimes we just want dinner and then we'll eff off to the shop in the morning.
Yeah, one of the main reasons I've avoided sidekick is because UK package sizes are different. I know there are plenty of things that I'll be able to chuck in the whole package even though it's too much or short it a little and still have it taste good, but that's really a second time through kind of thing. What am I going to do with dozens of partial packages of ingredients that I don't know how to cook and don't have recipes for? If Sidekick let you plug in the ingredients you do have and returned recipes that closely resemble what you have, that would be the thing for me.
I don't think this painted takeaways in a negative light at all
Don't play the bad kitchen card tho, this dish used 1 hob, 1 knife, a chopping board, and mostly store cupboard ingredients.
It's okay to be exhausted, to be a novice, to be disabled, or to have failed to plan ahead
The world sucks and there's no shame in throwing up your hands and ordering a curry
And sometimes the taste I crave really is just that takeaway dish.
It's not villainising to point out that you could easily save loads of money every year by making something yourself
Love these chef challenges (especially the old Budget Battles) just to see Ebbers Macgyver his way to a dish.
Is there a section on sidekick for moving house? Suggestions for curbing take aways while looking for the pots pans and spoons? 😅
Just downloaded the app. Can't wait to try it out
When I do UberEats, I usually do it on my way home it its there roughly when I arrive. I put instructions to leave it at the door. So in that regard, delivery will always be faster for me.
Thats not the point.
I would have loved if Ben tried to make the same dish that you ordered. Then you could also compare the dish, not just the time
Takeaway restaurants have mise en place Ebers seemed to be doing everything at once which is a bit of a disadvantage. I know some people dont have time for mise en place but i find it helps a lot.
How easy is sidekick to use if you are with 3 in a household and 1 is a vegetarian. Currently is replace meat in recipes for the vegetarian and leave it in for the others....?
I think cost should be included and you will find that home cooked (if you know how to cook it) is cheaper, more time consuming remember you still have to do the dishes, and tastes better (because if you are cooking you know how you like it to taste so spices and if you like heat with hot peppers of some kind what level and in reality food apps saves on labor and speed but you lose quality of the food and monetary costs.
Cooking the pork mince to a char is an amazing tip, thanks.
But when can we get the extended pluggy plug plug song music video? I need it in my life. And my playlist...