Two Chefs Rank Each Other's Favorite Foods in a Surprising Challenge

Well, today two chefs are stepping into dangerous territory. Sorted own chef Kush with multiple years of Michelin star experience. And Simon Rogan, the man behind multiple Michelin star restaurants and a worldrenowned reputation for worldclass food. They're about to rank each other's favorite food items, which sounds simple until it isn't. And the first category is store cupboard savior. Oh. Kush. What is it? Oh, these are my uh homegrown uh lacto fermented chili products from the last 5 years that I uh grow from seed. Tend to all year, even in the dark, and then make products out of that I can always come back to.

Kush has sent me multiple photos of his hot bush. So much chili. It's outrageous. Yeah. That looks hot, hot, hot. So, uh, we've got a candied, uh, maruga scorpions. Oh. Done in a pure sugar syrup. So, that's tamed. My version of a like a Frank's hot sauce. I made 8 L in December. I have 4 L left cuz it's quite popular. Uh, pickled jalapenos from 4 years ago. Um, a my grandma's green chili chutney recipe. That's got a lot of ginger going through it. This is scorpion chili chutney. That's a fine spread, isn't it?

I mean, I'm I'm intimidated now, you know, cuz he's put a lot of effort into this. I mean, I have, too. Well, my team has, so I'm a little bit at the mercy, but, you know, impressive, I have to say. You go off with a bang. Just wait for the next round. Um, where do you suggest a start? You reckon? I'd say dip a prawn in the hot sauce. That's the most popular that I've made. Okay. Uh, it's a bit mellow. It's a bit fruity. It's got emulsified with some oil and some zantham gum to give it the mouth feel of a Frank's hot sauce. That's got a kick.

It's got a tickle. It's got a tick. Got a kick. Yeah. That's the mildest out of all of them. Oh, I'll say that. Okay. Yeah. Uh you want to entertain, guests are coming over, you've got no time. So, all you have to do is defrost some prawns, whack out some chutneys and dips and yogurt, and you've got a lovely meal and you can say it's homemade rather than having to run to the shops every time. All the work's been done in advance. Quite like it actually. Yeah. I think it's all right. No vinegar in there. It's not overpowering. No. And then just sweeten it up with some of this.

Yeah. So that's the third hottest chili on earth. Yeah. The Maruga Scorpion, but it's been really tamed out just by cooking in syrup. M. Nice. Good. Yeah. Impressed. Lovely. Yeah. Great start. Yeah. Right. So four. I mean, where's that going to go then? I think there's something coming better. I think you're I think you've gone hard at the first choice, but I think you know you're saving a few things. So, I'm going to go three.

Smart move. I say for my store cupboard savior then we have my very own range of salts. There you go. And in particular, mushroom salt. Mushroom salt. So, I absolutely love mushrooms. I can't imagine a life without mushrooms at all. Ever. Um, and I normally find just a sprinkle of this on anything savory. Actually, probably dessert to be quite honest. I wouldn't mind. So, this is the mushroom we got um on the dish we're going to prepare for you. Um, but we've also got our farm herb salt. We've got an outer flour salt. Elderflower vinegar salt.

Yeah, it's got a real nice uh pecant. Yeah, it's like very nice. Get that on your fish and chips. Mushroom. So, mushroom is your one then. Is it mushroom salt is the one we're using on this one because of what it's going on? Is this your traditional breakfast then? This is my traditional breakfast. Yeah. But I normally find a bit of this on some pasta or you know all proteins really. Just gives it that nice umami hit.

Yeah. which brings out the flavors of everything, you know. How is it, Kush? I'm just going to say you're missing out massively. It's delicious. It's so back to basics and simple. I personally have never bought flavored salt, but in my store cupboard, I've got about five or six. Have you? I haven't got any. I've got They come They're amazing gifts. Yeah. Yeah, they are amazing. I always get like in a goodie bag when I go somewhere. There's always a flavor of salt in there. You don't really So, do these attention, but do I mean they're they're brilliant. Do these come

in a pack or will buy them individually? You can buy them individually and you can buy them online by the way organ at home. Um as a you know obviously lots of uh other things on e-commerce that we sell oils and vinegars and stuff like that. While it is delicious, it's a tricky one. It's a real tricky one cuz I like flavored salt but I make mine. Would I buy yours? Oh, no. I'm going to go third. Nice. Locked in. All right. Delicious. I can see where it's used and why you make it, but I know you can do better.

Well, I would say that's probably the simplest one. You It's going to be difficult for you put to put something on four. Hopefully. I mean, I don't think anything is a four really. Um, but no, we'll see. Amazing. Well, the next category is guilty pleasure. Oh yes. Is it these scrambled eggs? Right. I'm going to caveat my guilty pleasure by saying that I don't think food can be guilty. There's nothing more important in life than family, food, and water.

Some of the things we've eaten recently, I would say, are like beyond guilty pleasures. What is under that kosh terrifies me. Those are gourmet things that I care about. This is why I air in the kitchen as a kush tax style snack. What's so wrong about that? That's amazing. Oh yeah. Cheese. Yeah. Cheese and chicken. Yeah. Everyone likes fried chicken though, right? Yeah. Put a bit of blue cheese on it as well. I mean, come on. That's It's a match made in heaven, though.

Guilty for me is things that I know are bad for me with no benefit other than that 5 seconds of pure ecstasy in your mouth. Uh I don't do well with uh aged dairy, but that's another conversation. So having this combination of chicken fat with oil, carbs, and dairy fat, it's just one of those mouths. Is it quite healthy though? Yeah, pickles are good on the side to cut through chefs. Um and it really came to light at Christmas. Uh, three families came together. All the kids were playing in one room. All the adults were drinking

and standing around the kitchen eating. And there was a big pot of fondue. And no one dipped the crackers or the veg in the fondue. Everyone just went for the main like literally chicken into cheese. Eat it. And it was one of those like Yeah, it's wrong, but who gives a crap? Yeah. that saltiness, you know, it brings out the flavor of the chicken that got a nice little salty the skins are nicely seasoned, but that gives it that little edge, I think. Takes it to the next dimension, I think. So, question is, where's it go? I mean, do I go? Don't know. This is a pressure one. I got two.

I might regret that one. Simon, what have you got for your guilty pleasure? Guilty pleasure. I'm looking forward to this. My guilty pleasure. Nine stars. Yeah, but guilty. Yeah, but there's a bit of nostalgia involved here. It's not just like I go out and have one of these. It takes me back. It takes me back to my roots. Okay. So, it's got a lot of meaning. Chicken kebab. Yes. So, takes me back to when I first started. So, my first job was working in a Greek restaurant in Southampton at the age of 14. Okay.

And I worked my way up to controlling the grill and cooking the sulaki. Um, and the lamb kebabs and all the beautiful Greek criate food that we used to cook. I mean, you've you've this is got Kush's name all over it, isn't it? Yeah. I like kebab any time of the day. Can we have some of that hot sauce back? Yeah, please get some of that hot sauce. Well, I know this is going to taste great. Eating a dirty kebab. It's great. I don't know if I've cheated a little bit. You think your you say your chili sauce is actually enhance?

Really taken it to the next level. What can you say about kebab? You taste the smoke. Chicken's juicy still. Rice is nice and tender. Right. Kebab. Yes. I'm going to make it simple. Straight in. Yeah. I love a kebab. I love grilled meats. I love personally barbecuing, cooking over charcoal, meat on sticks over fire is in the best cuisines around the world. It's a masterpiece. Can't get And it's more than the sum of its parts cuz you can't bottle the smoke and the char. You can only get that from cooking it like this. And um the fact that you can pimp or adjust and have your salad,

have your extra pickles in there and it's made healthy as well by a bit of extra salad. It's it's got everything. Oh yeah, I think yeah, kebab is you can't be a good quality kebab. Whilst we munch on this kebab, should we get ready for the next category? Bargain buy. Pizza. Yeah, pig's head. I recognize you. Uh, so of one pig's head. Uh, this one, because I had to get it delivered, was a tenner, but it is 8 kilos. Um, with the skull still inside, but you've got the cheeks, the jel, the snout, the ears, all the skin, and there's so many different variations on how you can cook this.

Um, and it's really underrated. It once you know how to take it off the bone, um, it's beautiful amounts of meat and fat and it's really forgiving as well. Wow. Where do we begin? Uh I'll take you around the board. So uh I lightly herb seasoned uh a jowl, so off the side. Um slow roasted it for about eight hours and then this morning just poured ripping hot oil over the skin. Uh these are smoked uh pig jowl and carowway crockett with some tamarind ketchup. Got crispy ears with a smoked cabbage sal. Got head cheese from meat fish and cheese. And then that's all the rendered lard from the two uh heads that I

roasted or the two gels cuz the other ones for star food later. So it's always gives um and then made a nice stock from the skull and the trim bits. Well, pork is actually my favorite meat to be fair. Boys, do you want to have a snack? Do you want to come over and quickly grab something? Oh yeah. Hell yeah. There's enough. Tuck in. Yeah. Have a bit of this. This looks delicious. Oh wow. The cheek is amazing. That's noisy. Is it? That's really noisy. Yeah. And it's fallen out of favor as well cuz that's so good.

Brawn is very traditional in the UK. Yeah. For detad cheese. Yeah. And it's just Yeah. And that head cheese is cheese that's aged in the head, isn't it? No. It's not cheese. from That's what they called it. Yeah. From tech. Okay. It's It's misleading. It's not really cheese. No cheese involved. So, it's all the parts of the head meat that's uh brazed, flaked, then set with a jelly from the actual brazing liquid.

This one's got a bit of party for it. Okay. So, I got a bit of pork fat on my uh my plaque there. Um, so for Peppa and the pig, um, I mean, this could only go one way and I'm probably stitching myself up here because I don't know what you got for number four, but that's got to be number one. Wow. I mean, that was fantastic. That gel, that slow cook gel was absolute mint. Okay, so my bargain buy. Um, it could only be one thing, you know, something that we've been quite renowned for over the years. And it is the year of the cabbage.

Ooh. Cabbage. Yeah. And we grow a lot of them. We grow 40,000 cabbages a year. 40,000. Wow. Yeah. But that's got to feed four really busy restaurants. Two different types. red cabbage um uh called Calibos and a white cabbage called Duncan. These are both Duncan cabbages cuz we've got no Calibos left. And I' I've just I love cabbage. It's I love its versatility. So much you can do with it. It's so healthy and damn tasty as well. I agree. So here on the right we've got a shufasi. Mhm. So cabbage hollowed out. um stuffed it with like a Cumberland sausage sort of mixture. And then on this side we've got a Duncan cabbage which has been um margarm brined. So it's really taken on

that um really herbal flavor of the margarm. Um and we just roasted that off. Um and we've squirted over some uh beetroot uh jam. Um and then uh we finished it off with um toasted sunflower seeds uh and some onion uh crispy onions and bread crumbs. Amazing. That's my bargain. The cabbage on its own seasoned with the pig is amazing. We're very proud of our cabbages. So much texture yet you can see it's had a nice slow cook already but it help it holds up really well to that. Yeah. Looks stunning. That looks delicious, guys. Yeah, I bet that's stunning. As with the first, the cabbage holds up so well and it gives you texture anxiousness. Tastes really rich cuz it's held on to all the fat in all the layers. Then the beetroot

cuts through all that richness, the nuttiness from the crumble on top. Pops of the herbs. You don't need protein when vegetables are this good. No. Oh, cabbage. I love cabbage. But I don't want to put it second cuz then that whatever you come with it has to go last. Yes. I love this. Stumped him. You've absolutely stumped I'll be positive. I'm always positive. We know that, right? Yeah. So, you can only get better.

Cabbage in fourth into fourth place. No, it's delicious. And I love cabbage. But I didn't know you got more in you. I think you made a mistake. I feel better now. Actually, I do feel better. Well, the final round is expensive purchase. Oh, I'm looking forward to this. So, expensive purchase. Again, I'm going to caveat this with while not the most expensive, uh, when you factor in I already have a few of them, it becomes quite expensive. It is Robocoot. No, it's an adjustable slicer, but it's fully adjustable. So, Robok, Magix, they will make them with set um thicknesses where this will go up in millimeters. So, you can really

fine tune what you want. really slice that cabbage any way you want. Genius. I've got myself one of them. I already had uh two food processors with slicing blades and then I played around with one of these and thought I need this part. It's only 25 quid, but the whole unit's 400. So, therefore, it gets quite expensive. Yeah. So, it's one of my three food processors and I use it for So, we definitely need to stock that in our shop, I think. I think so. That to go with our cabbages. Yeah. With some cabbages. Um and I think I'd like you to put some things through my blade.

Oh, amazing. Yeah. And it's as simple as that. You get the sliced perfect chilies, but also the convenience that you can go a lot thicker or a lot thinner. And it's great for prep of all sorts, big parties or cabbage for slo. Uh and yeah, other manufacturers don't do an adjustable blade. Ingenious. Yeah. Saves a lot of hours. Man, a lot of man hours. One thing I love using it for is garlic. So, same blade. Go four cuz I like doing fried garlic. No.

Wow. Yeah. Wonderful. Tada. That's worth it. That's well and truly worth It saves so much time and you don't have to have six different blades of different thicknesses. One blade does it all. Well, it's got to go into fourth place. I love it. And I think I've absolutely nailed my choices. Don't you think? Are you happy? Do you think? I mean, I think I mean I love this, but compared to the other three things, I think, you know, I think I've pretty much got it spot on.

I agree. Nailed it. Cool. Lovely. Yeah, I think that's Yeah, I'm happy with that. I want to see what Simon's most expensive is saying. So, my most expensive purchase worth every penny uh is undoubtedly farm produce. Okay. It cost a hell of a lot of money to set up. The investment has been Oh, as in your farm? my farm. Yeah. The only farm. Yeah. What it's given us, it's given us over the years direction. It's given us meaning. Um, it's given us identity. And you can't put a figure on that, you know. It's it's immense. And like I say, it has been like a bottomless pit

sometimes chucking money down it and trying to keep it going. But it's like a drug. Once you start, you can't stop. you need to keep going and keep going and make it better and better every year and learn from your mistakes all the time. So, it's it's it's just more than just growing a bit of produce. It's it's a whole, you know, it's a whole movement and so it's as I said, it's the most probably the most fulfilling thing I've ever done in my life and I'm very proud of it and it is the worldass operation now which I've always wanted. I wholeheartly agree. I Yeah, this would be happily number one if I hadn't had your kebab.

I'm the same on a tiny scale. I wanted to grow as much as possible at home. Uh and I now grow the most expensive raspberries in the world because to put all the beds together was £1,000 or so. And so those first puns of raspberries were about a grand. But but when you ate them, they were fantastic and they come back every year. And I like moving uh the ladybugs from plant to plant. So they eat the aphids. When I'm on the farm in the mornings, you know, there's there's no place I'd rather be. You know, it's so beautiful when the sun's coming up over the mountains. We're in a valley, so you know, we're right down the middle of the valley and it's still it's just such a great place to be. And also, it really drives creativity

cuz we're getting to use the parts that no one else sees. So people forget a plant's got a root, a stem, a leaf, a flower, the fruit, you know, a seed. Well, it's it's no tail, but it's root to blossom. Exactly. So once again, we want to use every part of that plant. And what's not used goes straight back into the into hot composters. And also all of this is for you and your restaurants. Yeah. So basically these are cut here for coming down to Alice in London. So they're cut like this. Normally they go to the restaurants in living trays. So we literally snip them as they're being used. So obviously you can't get fresher than that.

Oh wow. Strongest number two. Really strong number two. Where Simon started. Where Simon is now. Amazing. Where Simon needs to go to make money. And that as well. Yeah. Home meals. So Kush, are you happy with that final list? You have no choice. No, I'd swap mushroom, salt, and cabbage. Yeah. Like I a kebab is a kebab, but then a farm might be number one cuz I'd love my favorite hobby is gardening and growing. So no is the answer.

No, no, no. I would go a farm, kebab, cabbage, salt. Okay. Well, Simon, thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. Cheers. Absolute pleasure. Winner Kush, great job. Over to you guys. If you enjoyed that, make sure you give the video a like and you can check out absolutely everything from Simon. We're going to put all the links down in the description box. Um, thank you so much for watching and suggest other chefs that we should pitch against other chefs and do this all again.

Yeah.