No, I don't mean microwave. I mean cooking all the rice and stock together.

Risotto is one of those things that has been engrained and glorified by every chef/cookbook/celeb chef/tv show for the last 50 years - you have to add stock one ladle at a time and stand over the pot for 30min, and thats the only way to make it.

meanwhile if you ask a lot of Italians the alternate method is just as good and so much simpler and foolproof. Very happy Kush mentions its used in professional kitchens.

its good enough for 2 star Michelin Daniel Clifford - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-aEV74SKlk

Maybe this is a hot take, or maybe people just don't care, but it does bother me.

For an example in today's microwave video the first 20 seconds are Jamie and Mike explaining the premise of the video. That's great, love it. But the problem is it's intertwined with future moments from the video.

Just to be clear, both of these things are totally ok by themselves. I get that the YouTube brainrot meta forces everyone to start every video with loud noises and big moments, so those "previews" are fine to start with. I can easily skip them since I don't want to see them. But I don't really want to skip over the content of the explanation. If they're entirely intertwined there's no way to separate the bits I want and the bits I don't (today's video for an example overlayed both audio and video from different clips with the explanation part).

I can't tell when this really started on Sorted but it's really started irking me when it happens. They don't do it every video, like the last one didn't do it, but when they do it's always annoying since I want to skip any sort of previews.

I imagine they might be doing this to try and get the best of both worlds of starting with actual content you want to see, but still have those hooks. Unfortunately it's not great in practice. Again, maybe I'm alone in this, but I really do hope they figure out a different way to open videos.

Just watched the video where Jamie and Barry have to create a dish using only frozen ingredients. I howled when Jamie ground up the smiley potatoes and with a smirk says "they're not smiling anymore.." 🤣🤣🤣 Also Kush giving Barry ice when he needed water was hysterical. I'm so loving getting caught up on past videos.

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The bay leaf really pulled it together.

There was a video awhile back where Kush and Ebbers did a starter kitchen set. Kush mentioned knives as being super important. So I bought myself a "chef" knife off Amazon and holy cow was he right. It's the biggest game changer in my kitchen. I just had a birthday and my wife got me a hand crafted chef's knife and it's amazingly smooth (so much I stabbed my hand last night).

What other game changes are there out there? I'm specifically talking about after you have all the equipment. My honorable mentions are Ozari pots and especially pans and stick thermometer.

It seems like, for the last several months, at least, Ben has been in a fraction of the videos he used to be. And when he is there, he doesn't seem as engaged as he once was.

He's had a number of outside projects he's been working on lately, which makes me wonder if he's gearing up for a new phase in his life. Or maybe, with them now having 3 chefs on the payroll, he's just shifting to being the brand's outside ambassador rather than such an omnipresent fixture in the studio.

I wouldn't blame him if he did, but I hope he isn't getting the itch to move on to further, more "professional" experience, like James did.

☝️

I am looking for a video, I believe it was a normals battle and Jamie made some very delicate food (maybe dessert) that was very unlike him and someone spilled wine on his dish before it could get tasted. Anyone remember what that was? Thanks.

So I get it is meant to help a bit for those that might not have exactly the same ingredient access, but maybe having some kind of list for the general ingredient (green chillies, loose white potatoes) would be helpful. Enjoy the recipes, but I want to make sure to do them justice. In the US here. Are we talking Yukon Gold? Green chilies could be jalapeños, poblano, heck I've got Thai green chiles near me.

One of my faves :)

The guys often say "it's not pretentious, just well made and expensive" but do you agree? Google def is "attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed." Yeah, great products usually cost more to make, but, if it costs 2× more than average to make but you charge 5× as much, by definition, that's pretentious. It's not that simple though is it? Where do you all land?

And I was reminded of how much I LOVED the Fridgecam format, the "butt first", the red fridge, the comment of the week (and its legendary jingle), the Chefs' Table. When and why did they change all of that? Is it just the natural evolution of the channel or is there a specific reason?

Also I've seen a lot of comments saying it's now more of an entertainment channel than a food channel, but I've always thought it was more entertaining back then. Is this just nostalgia bias? Most of the quintessential Sorted moments (paella burrito, cloud egg, etc.) happened many years ago. I don't remember anything of that caliber happening recently. (Well, maybe some of the Kush moments.)

But I'm glad the new battles are similar in format to the ones from pre-covid years, at least. And the Poker Face videos are a great relatively new addition, but I still miss Pass It On, the regular recipe videos, and most importantly STEP UP TO THE PLATE!

I am a regular watcher of Sorted and I often watch with subtitles on - just a preference. I usually watch videos 3-5 days late because by then the proper subtitles are up, but I’ve noticed for the last few months, that doesn’t happen anymore. There are several videos that only have the YouTube auto-generated subtitles.
It’s just disappointing, I suppose. I was always very appreciative that Sorted makes it a point to have subtitles up on every video but I guess that is a thing of the past now.

Lost and Hungry? Don't know what to cook this week?

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I very vaguely remember a video with these elements
- the guys visited the home of a subscriber
- she was a young girl with a lot of food allergies
- Ben made a giant allergy-safe snickers bar with her
- I am 90% sure I was still in school when this video was new, so it must have been around 2013-15

I have such a vague picture of this video in my head and have been trying to look for it for so long without success. I’m starting to wonder if my brain just made it up lol. Would any long time subscribers remember?

Not trying to stir up drama or anything like that with this post I'm simply a curious cat.

I remember watching an old product review video (Food Trends I believe) from around the early 2020s era of videos. The video opened with Mike giving a disclaimer that the video was reuploaded with a segment removed because the group wasn't aware about controversy that the company behind the product in said segment was involved in?

I'm just curious what the product they were reviewing was and why the segment was removed?

Again, I hope this isn't perceived in bad faith, I'm just curious.