Can a home cook make Crispy Chilli Beef as good as a professional chef?
In this challenge, Chef James and Home Cook Mike are both tasked with cooking the same Chinese takeaway classic: Crispy Chilli Beef. They’re given the exact same ingredients, but there’s one twist… the kitchen is split down the middle so they can’t see what the other is doing.
On one side, Chef James uses professional techniques, chef shortcuts and years of kitchen experience to build a refined version of crispy chilli beef.
On the other side, Home Cook Mike has to work it out from scratch – figuring out how to get the beef crispy, how to balance the sauce and how to pull the whole dish together under pressure.
Two cooks.
Same ingredients.
Same Crispy Chilli Beef.
But the results might be very different.
At the end of the cook, the wall comes down and both dishes are revealed for the first time.
Which version would you choose?
If you enjoyed this challenge, watch the Chef vs Home Cook Paella battle here :
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25 Comments
I just find the addition of ketchup very funny 😂 never tried it but hey if it works it works ❤
🎉🎉🎉
James is my favorite person on this channel
I feel like this is where Mike realises he can cook well, and he CAN trust himself. And that trying to do something "as it should be done" only makes him question everything and create a huttlestorm. Go Mike 🎉
Good day Sorted. Hope everyone is doing well. All of your content is informative and entertaining. Whit all that said I would like to see an episode where "umami" was not said at all. I think some of you rely on the catch all word to often. Keep up the great work.
IM SORRY BUT MIKE I WAS SO WITH YOU TILL YOU PUT THE RICE IN THE STIR FRY PAN
There’s a perfectly good counter to put the cloche on, no reason to set it on the floor.
I’m so glad James is back. He’s amazing eye candy 😍
James seems like he'd be a great mentor to have.
I must just say – I made upp a Crispy chicken recipie inspired by this video and it did become great
Are you using AI now to prop up the thumbnails?
This is one of the only recipes I know by heart. It's a big one used in my family. The original recipe is from a YouTube chef that goes by "The School of Wok" he's located in London
The sauce is just some minced garlic, finely chopped chilli and minced ginger added to a bowl, add ketchup, honey and chinkiang vinegar (black rice husk vinegar)
Add it into a very hot wok with sesame oil, let the fragrances shine and reduce the sauce slightly, when glossy, add in your fried beef (it works with chicken too if you hate beef) coat the chicken and immediately serve
James is amazing.
Love seeing James more. He is calm, cool and collected.
If we learnt anything today, I think it's Mike's a liar…
If we learnt anything today, I think it's Mike's a liar…
When I make crispy fried beef I cut the beef to the width and length of Twigglets and double fry it and you get that crispy beef flavour.
this was a great video, really interesting to see the difference in planning and order between James and Mike. i also think it's funny to see how differently they wear their aprons!
One thing I think improves your stir fry skills and sauces is to build and adjust them in the pan. Having all the ingredients out can feel crowded but you will understand what each ingredient does which makes it so much easier to tweak your seasoning.
One rule of thumb/trick that makes it less chaotic is knowing that adding water (in almost any form) will almost instantly stop cooking/burning and it doesn't take much.
If you look at pros using woks they are often adding splashes of water to control the temperature and release stuck sauce.
Next time you should have a normal create a recipe and the amount of time it should take them to make it, and then give all of the same ingredients to the chef with just the name of the dish. Then have them both cook at the same time and see how close the chef gets to the original idea!
What did the rest of the cards that Mike didn’t look at say?
Today I realized that if I was new to the channel I would have a very hard time telling these two apart, visually. Not sure which of the two is the clone/double, but whichever it is, sus.
Mike and James in the kitchen together is my favorite combo; they’re both so genuinely kind and respectful to each other, really nice to see
Here is the thing. Next time Mike is gonna make this dish, it will be better. Cause he now knows what he could do better and next time he makes this dish i am sure he will. Thats the great thing about doing stuff like this and getting input from a chef. And either way, if i got served what Mike made, i would look at it and be happy.
For all the shit Barry gets etc, I still think Mike is the one with the least growth cooking wise.