Pro Chefs Guess & Make a Recipe Based on Ingredients Alone

I actually read this comment in real time

and I was like that's a [bleep] up idea [laughs].

[lively music]

[Cameraman] This was the top comment on the last

Test Kitchen Talks video.

Okay

Kylee says

They should give each chef a recipe with all

the ingredients measured out and in front of them.

The catch is--

They don't know what the recipe is.

Well.

Oh!

Well Kylee, thanks a bunch!

All right, I'm ready!

Cool cool cool.

Are these both flour?

Oh, you don't tell me what it is.

I have to figure it out.

So there's multiple little powders.

Chickpeas.

Garlic.

Cumin, great!

I don't know what this is.

Maybe a little watercress?

Two kinds of flour?

Oh, do I have flour on my face?

This always happens!

What am I gonna do with all this tahini?

That's like a half a cup of tahini!

I don't wanna do this [laughs].

Whoa!

Okay, let me think.

Can I just make whatever I want?

What did everybody else do?

I feel like given the food processor,

you want us to make falafel

but I wanna make chaat, is that allowed?

Can I make chaat instead?

I think it's

in the world of a socca or a pancake?

I'm going to guess this is falafel.

And um--

Wait, do you tell me if I'm right?

No.

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I'm gonna start by mixing up a dough

and then I think I'm seeing like needing to make

some tahini sauce, I'm seeing fried chickpeas,

I don't get any cooking oil?

That is my cooking oil?

If this wasn't here and this was chickpea flour,

I was gonna say I was gonna make socca

but since these are here I'm still say

it's kinda like a chickpea pancake

and I'm gonna make like chickpea fritter.

I'm gonna make a mint chutney

and I'll dress the chickpeas with a little cumin and salt.

What I know about falafel is you're basically just mixing

a bunch of things together, you're chopping everything up

really finely, forming them into balls,

and then they're gonna go in the fryer

and crisp until you know,

they get all golden brown.

I don't really know what the watercress is there for.

Okay I'm gonna have a flatbread

and I'm gonna have some sauteed chickpeas

and then I'm gonna make a tahini sauce

and a herb salad.

I'm just gonna try to make like a chickpea batter of sorts

there's a lot of herbs going on

and it's just gonna be too much water content

to be going into the fryer

so I'm gonna kinda put these aside.

Flatbread, sauce, we'll sautee the onion, garlic,

cumin, with chickpeas and finish it with the greens

and have it with the flatbread, how does that sound?

Incorrect!

See how this works!

Doubt it will.

All right, so we're gonna make a little pancake, great.

[deep exhale]

The problem is people are gonna get a kick out of this

and I'm gonna have to do it again.

All right, let's do it!

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Can I get a whisk?

So we'll start with the tahini sauce.

Flour, salt.

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Mix

Am I gonna need a pan and oil?

Is that a leading question?

Lemon, herbs.

For texture, chickpeas are gonna go in here.

I'm just gonna crush them.

And I'll grate one of the garlic since they're here.

[pots crashing]

[Sohla laughing]

I'm gonna incorporate a little bit of water

just to kind loosen it up and make it into more of a paste.

I'm gonna start off with garlic.

I'm also gonna put my onion in here,

I can already tell this is still a little bit too big

for a normal golf ball size falafel,

so that's gonna go in.

I'm gonna make my chutney first

so we've got our mint and we're gonna blend this.

I'm going to mix the baking powder

into the flour as well as the salt,

I'm hoping this will make a dough

that actually comes together.

I don't really know exactly what I'm making

but I'm just trying to experiment!

I don't know why this flour is divided up.

Maybe we'll make something that just looks like

it'd be fun to eat, but actually inedible!

Right, ha ha, jokes on you!

Kaylee!

Hmmm, let's see, do we wanna do onion in here

or in the salad?

I've never made a falafel fritter before in my life.

This looks like kind of a lot of mint

so I'm gonna guess that some of this is being reserved

for garnish and I'm just gonna pulse it until the chickpeas

start to break down.

So look, there's our batter.

We'll try to fry some in that skillet.

We got a little Pam or what?

Let's see what happens!

This is such a small amount of herbs,

I hope this even blends honestly, oops!

I think I'm gonna add my flour and cornstarch now.

Just until it's incorporated.

Moracco what do you think, bud?

Nailed it?

No, dude. What do you mean no?

You're goin' down!

No, you got a bad attitude.

You making [bleep] crepes over there?

[laughs] We're making tahini parsley pancakes.

I don't know that you are.

[blender blending]

Next I'm gonna make the flat bread.

Flour, baking powder, salt.

Measured water.

Okay, is that fryer on?

Sort of feel like that was too much water.

That was definitely too much water.

[bleep]!

It's already looking way too wet.

Is it possible to get a little more bench flour?

Feel great about the dough.

I'm gonna let it rest.

Can I get the morter in pessel?

I'm just gonna do the rest of this in an M and P.

All right, so this dough at least seems workable now.

I'm gonna put the onion in the dough.

Go big or go home, right?

Almost!

Oh, we get a little more color on there,

we'll be in good shape!

Woop!

This is not cool by the way.

[laughs] What are you, are you making hummus?

No!

[soft music]

Oh God.

What have I done, guys?

So I've got tahini and lemon.

Oh my God, there we go, boom!

Just give it a little taste.

Pretty good chutney honestly.

Very proud of myself.

All right, we're rockin' at like 375 right now.

I would maybe go a little lower actually

like 350 but these are the tools that I'm given.

So we're gonna do it.

We're gonna sweat the onion and garlic in some olive oil.

It's gonna be very interesting to find out

what this was supposed to be.

[lively music]

Not gonna try to get too much color.

Just want the onions to soften a bit.

Add the chickpeas.

Chickpea.

Chickpeas.

Boom we'll add the chickpeas right in there

huh let them get a little saucy and tossy.

So I guess Morracco deep fried them

got them real nice and crispy on the outside.

So we're just gonna let these chickpeas drain for a minute

[lively music]

All right, that's lookin' a little better.

All right, let's try this now.

This is not the texture I'm going for

but we're gonna make it work 'cause I just put all

that water in without really thinking.

Oh God, oh God it's so wet!

[lively music]

Basically trying to get some flavor on the chickpeas,

once that happens I'll add some parsley.

Although not the prettiest,

brown food is sometimes the most delicious.

Mmm, pretty good actually!

Could use a little more salt.

Ready?

Something delicious is gonna happen.

And I'm looking for like a very gold color

on the outside, I don't want like super super dark brown

but I don't want, like we still wanna go

a little further than that.

Right, that's a little too pale.

Okay, so I'm gonna do this.

Considering I made these super dense,

they're gonna need a little bit of time.

They look like chicken nuggets!

Should I blend this?

[lively music]

I guess we're making hummus.

You think you know a blender.

Chris, do you think dough tastes better

with holes or without?

With! With!

I knew he was gonna say that!

Who doesn't like fried dough?

Know what I mean?

[lively music]

All right, first guys out.

You wanna salt it while it's hot

because the flavors will melt together a little bit better.

You can see they're turning color which is good.

The bad news is they look like meatballs.

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I think it's too thick

but we're gonna eat it!

We don't have our crunchy thing,

we don't have our yogurt but

this is gonna taste delicious all the same.

All right.

Yeah, now we're cookin' bud.

Took me until right until this second

to get excited about this.

But hey, that's cookin' you know!

Puffy, it's holey!

It looks great!

[lively music]

[Alex] They don't look as good as the first one.

[Christina] Need some salt.

[Andy] A little bit of oil.

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Oh yeah, here's your dish bud,

everyone gather around.

This is like a real, makeshift aloo chaat right here.

[lively music]

It looks great!

Always a little more salt.

Just gonna drizzle this on top of my salad.

Dollops of whatever this is.

Oh guys, I think I'm done [laughs].

Today I have prepared for you

deconstructed green falafel.

All the flavors of a falafel and all the flavors

that would make it green together at last.

It's really not bad.

I don't know if this is what it's supposed to be,

but this is what I intended and that's what I made!

Well, we made some blonde skillet bread.

Okay, and then a really lovely tahini,

little dippy thing.

Little tahini herb lemon sauce situation

simply dressed watercress and fried chickpea-ish

fritter-ish, shapeless blob.

You look like you picked off all the best parts

of calamari and put them on a plate.

A plus for plating frankly.

Crisp up some chickpeas with some aromatics,

combine the crispy chickpeas and aromatics with the batter

and then made this pancake and this really earthy tangy

salad to top it all off!

It's not bad, it's pretty good.

So I made like poor man's chickpea chaat.

I made a chutney out of the mint

and then I kinda sweetened the tahini and then thinned it

with water and drizzled it over here as well.

Mmm, y'all that's great!

Like I wish there were even more lime,

even more chutney but like, worked with what I got!

This is friend chickpea meatballs

that were supposed to be a falafel I'm pretty sure

with watercress salad and tahini dressing.

Finished with some big leaves of mint.

Good flavor!

They are not terrible. I know.

I love the mint, I want them to be more crisp

on the outside, like I wanted them to be rolled

in flour or some sort of like coating

before they went in the deep fryer

so that they would crisp up more!

I'm sure everyone did something different

there's not only one way to put those ingredients together.

That's so true, Molly.

I think you just explained the joy of cooking to me.

I'm gonna cry!

I made pureed chickpeas with tahini sauce

and fried bread and herbs.

It's like deconstructed, dip and chips.

Mhm, nothing wrong with it, it's fine.

This is an onion flatbread

with fried chickpeas, herb salad and tahini sauce.

Not bad.

Tasty, bright, creamy dressing, texture from chickpeas,

brightness, little punch from the herb,

I'd eat it.

It breaks my heart because I love falafel.

What did you do to me?

[Cameraman] We'll show you the recipe later

if you're curious.

And now it makes complete sense.

Oh God.

That kills me.

That's what I figured,

I just didn't feel like making falafel.

So we were just making falafel balls.

And what you made like a little pita

is that what was going on?

The binder?

Guys, you don't make falafel with cooked chickpeas,

this is a PSA right now.

As someone who has eaten a lot of falafel,

the watercress is--

Oh, that was, okay!

Greens in the sauce, okay!

All right, fair enough.

[Cameraman] You like it enough to go for the second bite?

Yeah it's pretty good!

I mean