2 Chefs Test THE WONDERBAG: A Non-Electric Slow Cooker! | Sorted Food
– We are Sorted. A group of mates who have your back when it comes to all things food. From cooking battles, to gadget reviews. – Ben, it's not worth it! – And cookbook challenges, to a midweek meal packs app. – [Jamie] Crack your eggs, bake. – We uncover the
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Now you guys know how much we
all love watching our friends, Ben and James, who are actual chefs, review some kitchen kit. Well today we've got something
quite wonderful for them. – It's a Wonderbag. It's essentially a
non-electric slow cooker, and I'm quite excited about this. How about you guys? – So I think this is really cool. I've heard some things about it. Excited to try it. – I'm excited to see whether it works, because how do you put something in a bag and it keeps it warm 12 hours? – And also, it's got a
really cool backstory to it. – Every day, more
than 3.5 billion people cook over an open fire, jeopardising their health, causing widespread deforestation
and burdening women with hours of unpaid
labour needed to keep up with the demand for firewood. So Sarah Collins, an
activist and entrepreneur from South Africa invented the Wonderbag. A non-electric slow cooker. Just one bag can reduce the
amounts of cooking fuels for a family by 70%, and saves five large
trees from deforestation. This amazing product has
helped to improve the lives of many communities, particularly those in developing countries
who live day to day with little to no electricity.
– It's obviously doing some
amazing things around the world. Get it open! (upbeat music) I'm massively intrigued by this, 'cause I don't quite
understand how it works. What does it feel like? What's inside that, that material. – Feels foamy. Like insulation. Funny that. – It doesn't look like a
piece of kitchen kit at all. It looks something you
take to bed with you, rather than into the kitchen.
– Considering how big
it is, it's not heavy, but I imagine incredibly well insulated. – I still don't understand
how it keeps things hot for that long. – Right, let's crack on and cook. First recipe, lamb curry. – It's worth saying before we start, that the lamb recipe is
specifically designed for the Wonderbag. It's probably gonna work really well. The other two, we've come up with, and we have no idea if they're gonna work. They're a test, an experiment. This recipe is by the
founder of Wonderbag, Sarah, and it's a Durban lamb Curry. We're going to start it on the hob, we're going to get like the
lamb chops really brown. The Wonderbag should continue to cook it for four or five hours once it's come off. I'm excited for this. And it's got bananas in it. – [Ben] Served with
bananas, right at the end. – I like that. This is one of those
recipes that I have no idea what it's supposed to taste
like, but the flavours excite me when I look at them.
– One of my favourite
bits about this recipe, is that it's marked as a one out of 10 in terms of difficulty. So if you screw this up, guys. (Jamie laughs) – I'm getting the other
base flavours ready. So an onion, lots of garlic, lots of fresh ginger, and
some chilli all chopped up, and that's going to go into the pan with curry powder to sweat off once the meat has browned. I know this is all about
the Wonderbag, right, but can I make it about me for a minute? – Why have you got your
hands in your pockets? – I left home early this morning. Before I left, I harvested
something I've grown for our curry. Home-grown chilies. – Can't stand him. The swagger. Hand in pocket. – My produce from seed. – Could you not have
waited for them to grow a little bit first? – It's not about the size. It's about- Garlic, ginger, chilli, all into the pan with the curry powder. According to Sarah, last
flavour that needs to go into the pan, along with the
wet stuff, tomato, and beans, a little bit of water, is bay leaf.
My other pocket. Look what else I harvested. Ebbers' bay leaf! – They're so sweaty! – Got everything in. Ben's chilies and bay leaf are in. Next up, lamb goes in, tomatoes go in, beans go in, pour some water in. And that's it, a one out of 10 recipe. In terms of ease. – Heat up to a boil. And I guess you've got to get it super hot all the way through, so that it gets maximum
chance of staying hot for four to five hours in this thing. – [Barry] Tuck him in. – [James] Lid on. (upbeat music) – I'm excited for this. – So am I, but I just show
it in a different way, Ben.
(Jamie laughs) – It looks like two proud parents tucking their kid up for bed. – [James] I just can't imagine how. – Yeah. But I'm sure it's hot in there, but how it stays that hot. – I suppose now we would
chuck that pan into the oven at 150 degrees Celsius or
something for two to three hours? – Yeah, a couple of hours with lamb.
– With this, it doesn't
need any electricity or additional heat, which is amazing and confusing, and I hope it works really well. – So we're gonna put it
to the side in the studio for four or five hours
and move on to recipe two. – The next recipe is sticky
beef chilli short ribs. Super simple. – A one out of 10? – This could actually be a one out of 10. – I've eaten this before,
'cause this is what we made for my Made Personal
like five, six years ago. It's a 10 out of 10 eating experience. – It's cooking more meat on
bone, so it's great flavour, but it does need, beef short
rib, a really long, slow cook. We've also chosen to go cast iron pan, which we think might hold in more heat. And we've got another Wonderbag! Look at that pretty design, – This recipe is so easy that
we are gonna have to adapt it a little bit actually, because
what we do in the recipe is marinade the beef
short ribs in soy sauce, star anise, chilli, ginger,
garlic, and brown sugar.
And then when we wanna
cook it, we just add water, put it straight in the oven. So what we're going to do is
chuck everything in the pan and then just bring it up to temperature, put it in the Wonderbag. – So you're not the searing
off the meat at all? – [James] Not in this recipe, no. – Not this one. 'Cause with all the soy and the sugar, and then all the aromats
and the star anise, you get so much flavour,
plus slow cooking the beef, that we don't even bother searing it off. – That's not to say that
you couldn't sear it off. You can definitely sear it off. But for simplicity, this is great. This has to work, because
it's beef short ribs, and if we can't eat them. – I don't wanna waste beef short ribs.
– I think what I'm thinking is, if this is going in the oven, so this would go in
the oven again for like two, three hours, maybe more, at a very low temperature, but it would still be like
bubbling away a little bit in the oven. Do you know what I mean? I just can't see how this
is going to bubble away. It's just gonna stay warm, so are the ribs actually gonna cook? Compared to the lamb chops, which'll definitely cook,
'cause you can cook them fast as well. (upbeat music) – Tuck it in Night night. (upbeat music continues) You could try and make
that look lighter, Ben. That was a bit of a struggle with it. – [Ben] It's quite heavy, it's
cast iron and full of beef. – Just like me. – You know, we always
like to mix things up, so we're going sweet. This is a chai and white
chocolate rice pudding.
It's from "Can't Be Arsed To Cook Two," and it is in the original
recipe, a baked rice pudding. So you start it off, then
you put it in the oven. You bake it so it gets a deliberate skin, and it's incredible. We're not obviously
going to bake it in here, but in theory, absorption,
same quantities should work. – This one's really easy. All the wet ingredients go into the pan. So that's the milk, the cream, the sugar, the chai tea bags, and the vanilla paste.
(upbeat music) – [Ben] Once our dairy
has infused, we scoop out the chai bags, and we go in rice, nutmeg, and white chocolate diced up. (upbeat music continues) When I first heard about the Wonderbag, I instantly thought of
the times in my life where I could use it, which is like camping and
picnics and cooler bags for parks, things like that. But it's only when you start
to read about the difference they make, that I realised
just how important they are. – That, my friend, is called privilege. (Jamie laughs) Because we're testing it.
because this could be good for us to use somewhere in our lives.
Like yeah, when we go camping
or something like that. It's not something that we'd
need to rely on every day, which is the job that
they're doing so amazingly, which is awesome. – When I go camping,
one of my favourite jobs is collecting the firewood. But you realise that actually,
it's the women and children who are disproportionately disadvantaged by sometimes up to four
hours of collecting firewood, stoking fires, keeping it going. That's just gonna sit
there for four hours. You don't need to burn the word, you don't need to keep the fire going. – Yeah, the amount of fuel is
massive in terms of savings, but also the health
benefits of not sitting next to an open fire. Hadn't even considered that. – So if there's a saving of
three or four hours a day of wood collecting for fire, stoking fires, or scrubbing of pans that've been on the
fire for four to five hours.
Across a year, that's 1300 hours saved, which can be put into
education and up-skilling. Smaller Wonderbag. Smaller amount of rice. We'll leave that. I don't know, I'd give it
90 minutes in the oven, but let's just leave it for a
while and see how it gets on. – Yeah, I think we just
leave it the whole time. (upbeat music) – We've got three dishes! – They look fantastic. – They all had six hours in the Wonderbag while we were doing other stuff, and when I opened it up,
they were all still hot. A good eating temperature. Not cooking at that point,
but a good eating temperature. – Shall we start with Sarah's lamb curry? – Yes. – [Ben] Dig in. (happy music) – So we're looking for
like sauce that's thick and coating the beans.
We're looking for beautifully cooked lamb, and all those flavours like just getting know each other a little bit. – [Jamie And Ben] Cheers. – [Barry And James] Cheers. – That is far from dry. – It's delicious. – Oh wow. – Your fears have been put to bed. – It's perfect, isn't it? – Yeah, it's great. – Absolutely perfect. – This is me stepping
outside of my comfort zone, lamb and banana. – Why not, eh? – I really like that! – It really works. – Shall we try the second one? Okay, short rib. I think we should say up front, we were quite bold in recipe choice here, because we did choose probably
the biggest chunk of meat on the biggest bone to cook this way.
– [Barry] It's a proper test, isn't it? – Yep. Not done. – [Barry] Whoa. – [James] It actually it
looks really appealing. – This looks amazing, but it is not what you
expect from beef short rib, and we would typically cook it for about the same length
of time, but continually, and you want it to melt in the mouth. We kind of pushed the boat
to see what had happened. It's not kind of worked. – I mean, I'm just gonna
try that bit there. It's an end bit, so. – Oh, great recipe. The flavours are amazing. – I would look at that and say failure. Wrong recipe choice, wrong meat choice, but it's still delicious. I think the key here is either 50% cook and then 50% Wonderbag, so you're still halving the fuel use. Or cut the beef up. Like they suggest in the recipe book. We should stop trying
to push the boundaries. – Definitely cut the beef up. – If that's a failure. – That's the tastiest failure
I think I've ever had. – Well done! – Well done! – Thank you, it's brilliant.
– Delicious. – Right, third one, dessert. This excites me. – [Jamie] So remind me again. – [James] Chai rice pudding. (pop music) – That takes me to being four,
five, six years old again. It's like rice pudding just
takes me back to being a child, except that has the elegance of the chai and the white chocolate. – I love that warmth of the chai. Love it. – That worked well. – I'm gonna call it, two
and a half out of three. – Yeah, bang on. – Biggest lesson learned? Listen to the professionals
and stick to the lamb dish. (Barry laughs) – Now obviously none of this is #ad, we would have told you that upfront.
But since buying the Wonderbags ourselves, and testing them, we've
been speaking to Sarah, who is the founder, and she's actually offered
to donate 1000 Wonderbags and 400 Wonder Masks to help with COVID, to the communities that
need them the most, and do it in Sorted's name, which is amazing.
– Incredible. – But we don't wanna leave it there. We'd love to see if Sorted as a community can match or exceed Sarah's donations. So there is a link in the
description box down below. If you click on that, it will take you to the Wonderbag website
where you can donate. Donate whatever you can. If you can afford it, every Wonderbag that gets
donated will go to help communities that really need it. – If you are able to donate, then make sure you comment, "Love from Sorted," and we'll be able to collate it all, see how much we can do as a community, and we'll keep you
updated on the progress.
Thank you in advance. – Can we still keep eating
this delicious failure? – Yes. – Perfect. – [Mike] The Packs app is just
one of the tools being used as part of the Sorted club. Members are also discovering and sharing restaurant recommendations
using the Eat App, listening and contributing to
our "Feast Your Ears" podcast, and giving us inspiration
for new cookbooks received throughout the year. It's all included, so
check out Sorted membership by heading to sorted.club.
And now a blooper. – Oh. Oh, chef. – It's like, we're both
thinking ahead, init it? – Yes, chef. (Ben laughs) You go with yours. – We've both simultaneously
folded a cloth, 'cause we have to put that in the bottom. – We both read the instructions..
