Too many cooks spoil the broth. But exactly how many? YouTube channel Sorted Food co-founders Barry Taylor and Mike Huttlestone determine to find out in their latest foodie quest (online).
The 40-minute video sees the pair lug a pressure cooker pot around London over 24 hours, stopping at the capital’s best restaurants, where chefs make their mark on a basic chicken broth.
The chefs’ different philosophies are notable. A single black cardamom pod, lightly pinched, is all BiBi chef Chet Sharma opts to add. “I don’t want it to become all about the cardamom,” he explains.
Konishka’s Atul Kochhar, on the other hand, chucks in green cardamom, mace, Tellicherry black pepper and saffron. “It feels like with those ingredients, even in 10 more chefs’ time, there’ll still be a touch of Atul,” Taylor gasps. “They’ll find it hard to overcome that,” Kochhar laughs in response.
With each addition, viewers learn the what and why of each ingredient from the chefs themselves.
It’s not just Taylor and Huttlestone that go on a journey (they travel in a battery-powered bubble car called a Microlino, the maker of which surely sponsored the video) the broth does too. By the end, “it tastes like a sauce, like a demi-glaze” says Anglo-Thai chef John Chantarasak after a spoonful.
Pleasingly, they do definitively answer the question posed up top, when a chef panel decide the broth is both servable and needs nothing more added. A silly premise that proves a lot of fun.
No comments yet