Can We Make Our Favourite Fast Foods at Home? Gastronuts

Gastronuts, let's find out what our challenge is.

Ah...OK.

Can we make our favourite fast foods at home?

The Gastronuts taking the fast food challenge are,

My dream takeaway meal would probably be pizza, chips and as a topping,

sweet and sour chicken.

The most unhealthy takeaway meal...

I think would be a double kebab.

Coming up on the show today.

The Gastronuts get tongue tied after seeing what makes an economy burger.

Urgh! Hair!

They find out which takeaway is lard of the manor.

Urgh!

And am I talking rubbish when I say we can cook pizza in a bin?

Looks like quite a nice meal.

That's all coming up later. But first...

Who likes a takeaway?

-Me.

-Me.

-I do.

-Everyone likes a takeaway. I do.

-What do you like about takeaways?

-They're tasty.

-They've got my favourite foods in.

-You don't have to cook them.

Good for a Friday night when you've been out.

-You're treating yourself. What about the bad things?

-Unhealthy.

Too greasy.

-Can we can make fast food at home?

-ALL: Yeah.

Can we make fast food in some way better than the fast food joints?

-ALL: Yes.

-First of all, let's order

some fast food.

PHONE RINGS

Hello, good evening. How may I help?

Hello, it's Stefan from Gastronuts.

Would you like to order?

I would like to have five sweet and sour chicken.

And five egg-fried rice with spring onions. Number 55 and 99.

OK, thank you very much.

Our order's being taken and the race is on.

To wipe the smile off his face we'll need to make the same thing quicker,

cheaper, tastier and healthier than our local takeaway.

Start the clock.

Barney, you're in charge.

-What have we got to do?

-We have to start by cooking the rice,

as this will take the longest.

Brilliant, let's go, guys.

OK, right, right. Somebody find the rice, please.

There's ingredients all over here.

Which one's the rice?

Five sweet and sour chicken, five egg fried rice.

Allow 50g of rice per person.

What's the next thing we need to do?

You need to peel and chop onions.

Theo, got any onions there?

That's garlic.

None of the Gastronuts have worked in a Chinese takeaway before,

so cooking quickly, under pressure, could be a real challenge.

There's a knife for you.

Oh, I've cut myself.

-Cut yourself already?

-Yep, so have I.

Onions, fingers they don't sound the same and they don't look the same!

Come on, guys, we're making sweet and sour,

not sweet and sour-ARRRGH!

OK, that's all of the peppers and the onions chopped.

-I reckon all these things need to be fried.

-Just coming up

to 13 minutes.

13 minutes exactly, now.

We haven't got anything frying yet. Not doing very well.

-Do you reckon we can crack this?

-Yes.

The takeaway guys have been here before. Probably every night.

They're not breaking a sweat, while we're really struggling to keep up.

Cut the chicken breasts into thin slices.

Sweet and sour chicken is one of our favourite takeaways.

As well as chicken, our version contains carrots,

peppers, onions,

ginger, chillies, soy sauce and spices.

For the sweet and sour sauce we're using pineapple juice

and a sprinkling of brown sugar.

Peel and grate the ginger.

-19 minutes.

-Eiya!

-I feel like Gordon Ramsay

-Is there a grater?

Er...that hasn't cooked quite... oh, stuff it.

-One tablespoon of white wine vinegar.

-A good splash.

Wha-hey! Stop there.

The takeaway is in the bag and on the way.

But we've got until it arrives and lands on the plate

until we call time.

It looks like we'll need it.

Couple of tablespoons of ketchup in there.

Go on! Squeeze it!

Bit more. Bit more, bit more!

-Bit more!

-Come on!

What was the other thing we had? The...um...eggs!

The eggs! OK, right.

-I think that we'll assume is ready.

-26 minutes.

Eggs, you've got the eggs.

You need to lightly beat them.

Anybody out there yet? Nobody's out there, yet. We're all right.

Chop the corr...coriander.

Stir that all through.

-Some people are coming up.

-Urrgh!

-Eeeek!

-OK, so that...

Where does this go?

DOORBELL BUZZES

Did you hear anything? I didn't hear anything.

-OK, er...

-Doorbell just rung.

-Yeah, thanks, Barney.

-That needs a bit more oil.

-Half an hour.

-Ah!

-DOORBELL BUZZES

-ALL right, all right, you're here.

Allowing time to dish up

the takeaway makes it in 28 minutes, 13 seconds.

I think, I think, I think,

I think we're there! Yeah!

Time for the taste test.

First up, the takeaway chicken.

It was delivered quicker but will the taste make it the winner dinner?

Everyone got a fork?

Have a try and tell me what you think.

It's very sweet and I think the rice is maybe a bit hard.

The chicken is nice, but it's just squidgy and the rice is a bit hard.

Yeah. This chicken has been covered in batter and deep-fried.

That's how they did it so quickly.

Not bad, but we can top it.

The takeaway's too sweet for us.

And it's deep fried, so less healthy than ours.

But will the extra time we took, pay off in the taste test?

I hate to say this, cos it's our cooking,

but the chicken is actually a little bit undercooked.

What the heck are you saying? It's spot on. I actually prefer this one.

It has all the vegetables, all of that.

Lovely.

-OK.

-You sounded like a real critic!

-That's right, yeah. You're good.

I think it's better than a takeaway because it's not too sweet.

-We should start our own takeaway company!

-Hey, Gastronut Takeaways!

Super fast!

What's extraordinary is this was so much cheaper than the takeaway.

We spent £18.48 on our ingredients, and there's loads of spices

and other things left that we can use for other meals.

The takeaway cost us £41.50 so this cost less than half the takeaway.

Which is fantastic!

We know that takeaways can contain some dodgy ingredients.

But is there a way we can still have our favourite treats

without hurting our health?

There's nothing wrong with having a takeaway every now and then,

but you guys are Gastronuts. You've got to be choosy about what you eat.

Who here likes burgers?

-Me.

-Me.

-You like burgers? Who LOVES burgers?

-Me!

-Burgers are great, aren't they? Who knows what goes into a burger?

-Me!

-What is it?

-Um...

-Um...meat.

-What kind of meat?

-Cow.

-Beef, yes. What sort of beef do you reckon it is?

-No idea.

-Mince beef.

-A bit of leg?

-Brain!

-A bit of brain? The thing is, inside the bun there are secrets

to be discovered. Would you like to find out?

-Yes.

-OK.

-Let's roll!

Top meat man, Jack O'Shea is going to show us how to make

a quarter-pounder that isn't to die for.

Hello, Gastronuts.

-How you doing?

-What's up, Jack?

Can you show us what goes into a normal takeaway burger,

-and then the sort of burger that you might make?

-Certainly.

-Urgh!

-Eeew!

-That looks like a tongue.

-Let's eat this raw!

-Raw?! No!

-Is that the bladder?

-Look at this.

That is collagen. You have it in your body as well.

It's the glue that keeps all the animal together.

If there's too much of this in your burger it will be very cheap.

And that is fat from lamb.

That can be mixed together and it's all called meat.

So even though it's from

-different animals, it can still all be in a burger?

-It's still meat.

-What's that sitting next to it?

-That's a tongue.

Urgh!

-Urgh!

-That is massive! You want us to hold it?!

That's looks like a whale bit, there.

-Does it feel strangely like your own tongue?

-No!

-but on a big scale?

-My tongue is smooth!

-Not the inside, here, but this bit...

-That bit,

I think my tongue is a little bit like that.

It's got a really tough bit of muscle, there.

-Eew!

-It's all muscle.

-Urgh!

So, the sort of meat you find in a cheap takeaway burger

can actually contain lamb fat, cow tongues and gristle.

But once it goes through the mincer, you'd never be able to tell.

So, Jack, can you show us how to make a usual takeaway burger?

Right, OK. Sophie, can you put some of that beef trim in here?

Give me some of the lamb fat.

I'm never eating another burger.

Wrong answer. You're going to eat a very good burger.

Rachel, will you give me some of those beef pieces, please?

Cos they're also very cheap. Theo, would throw in some of this sticky,

nasty stuff.

-Urgh!

-Urgh!

It's quite light coloured, isn't it? Quite a lot of fat in there.

The beginning of it, it was all dark. But then it got really light.

Yeah, looks quite fatty, doesn't it?

It's al considered meat, as well. It's all from an animal.

We're going to add some salt and pepper.

In the cheaper burgers as well, they put in too much salt.

They want to make all their cheap meat taste better than it is.

And then we're going to add some of this cereals.

And that's going to make it... more weight.

The you mix it all up...

It feels all slimy. Because there's loads of salt and breadcrumbs in it,

it feels all lumpy.

-A bit gritty as well.

-Yeah.

Theo, I'm going to get you to put in some water. Put in all that.

-So water goes into burgers?

-Yes.

-I knew it, but I didn't believe it.

-Mix that up.

-It's all squidgy.

-And yucky.

-yeah.

We're going to make that into little patties.

That actually looks like a burger.

-Uncooked.

-All of a sudden it looks burger-esque, doesn't it?

Economy burgers often contain huge amounts of fat and salt

and some rather icky ingredients.

Probably worth thinking about, the next time you buy a takeaway.

We'll see how this one tastes in a bit,

but first it's time to up the stakes and make a top notch burger.

Now, we're going to make the proper burger.

Look at the difference in this meat. You've still got fat in here

but fat is not always bad. You need fat, especially at your age.

You're running around a lot, you've got to work it off.

So look at the difference in the colour of the meat coming out.

-That looks like real stuff.

-Looks like proper meat.

There's another trick too. If you put it through the machine twice,

you won't see as much of the white stuff, but that's not bad.

We're not going to try and hide anything in our super burgers.

All of the fat, you could easily just take it off.

But if you have it without the fat, it's dry and boring.

It's like eating sawdust, if you can imagine that.

We're going to put some salt in it, only a little bit

because there's so much flavour in properly raised beef.

-Are you going to put in breadcrumbs?

-We don't put that in our burgers.

We'll put a bit of white pepper.

It's really squidgy and soft, and it can stick to your hands quite easily.

-You can see the difference.

-Look at that.

-Really different colours, aren't they?

-But I guess the proof

is in the cooking and eating. Let's cook them. Cheers, Jack.

Cheers, guys.

The moment of truth. First let's try the economy burger.

Does actually taste quite nice.

-That's too much salt.

-Actually, exactly like a normal,

takeaway, economy burger.

OK, let's try the Jack burger.

After, can we have some ketchup with them?

What's the difference then?

This one is kind of soft and that one, you have to really chew.

It's really nice. It tastes like more how a burger should be.

So you're about to eat your own burgers for lunch.

Which one would you choose?

And Barney would go for the economy one.

If, like Barney, you want to eat a tongue and gristle burger,

you can pick one up for about 20p.

If you want to a good quality burger like Jack's, it will cost you.

Coming at a price of 80p.

The choice is yours.

We're trying to make our favourite fast foods, at home.

So far we've made a Chinese cheaper, tastier,

healthier and almost as fast as a takeaway.

And we've chowed down on some ground cow.

Next, we find out just why you should never eat anything

that looks like an elephant's foot.

And we see if takeaways really do belong in the bin.

We love takeaways because they're fast, easy and they taste good.

But, that taste comes at a price. We're going to uncover the dark side

of our favourite fast foods.

Is coleslaw pretty healthy?

-Yes.

-I reckon. There's vegetables in it.

-Yes, you have it in salad.

-Yeah.

Chicken curry, rice and a nice bit of naan bread.

-That's too tempting.

-Reckon that's good for you?

The chicken's good for you. Sauce? Not so good.

-What have you got there?

-Kebab.

Do you like kebabs?

I want you to show my, by pouring salt into this test tube,

how much salt you reckon there is in that takeaway food

-that we all enjoy eating.

-Went a bit over there.

-Yes, you did.

I reckon there.

A bit lower than that, I reckon.

Whoa.

OK, now we need to guess how much fat there is.

To do that, we need our display tub of lard.

I would not eat that!

Take us much fat as you think there is in that portion of coleslaw,

and put it on that plate.

-I can't even look at it!

-Each of these blocks is about 5g of fat.

To give you an idea, one bag of crisps

contains about two of these cubes of fat. Eating too much fat

can make us overweight and lead to serious health problems.

Oh, now that's almost more food than there is on the kebab plate!

It's time to find out who was right and who was wrong.

You were quite enthusiastic with your guess about salt.

I'd say you were about five times over.

Barney's gone way over on his guess. But the truth is still shocking.

Something that looks innocent, like coleslaw

actually contains as much salt as 2.5 bags of crisps!

But, what about the fat?

Pop that fat next to your little pile, there.

Were you right or wrong?

-Wrong.

-Wrong. The guess is way out.

But the amount of fat in a portion of coleslaw

you get with your fried chicken is still as much as two bags of crisps.

OK, chicken tikka masala, Sophie. How far off were you?

About double.

So much for the salt. What about the fat?

Pop that on your plate next to your pile of lard.

Incredibly, the curry has the same salt as nine bags of crisps.

And the same fat as six bags.

Rachel, there's your lard. Were you right, or wrong?

Wrong.

The kebab has the same fat as eight bags of crisps.

That's as much fat as you should eat in one whole day!

But wait and see how much salt it contains.

Oh, my word!

That's how much salt is in many doner kebabs.

Unbelievably, just one doner kebab contains, wait for it,

as much salt as 40 bags of crisps,

which is three days worth of salt!

It's been hard work, let's have a little drink.

Ah! I don't trust you, no!

Why would you not trust me?

All right, I'll do it first.

Have a little sip of that.

Wait, wait...

He's got salt in it!

This is the amount of salt that you get in sea water.

This salted water is actually less salty than that kebab.

Order these toxic takeaways too often

and you could end up eating hospital food instead.

Yum!

Urgh!

If you think takeaway food is super fast,

then take a look at something that's super cool.

How do we make super cool water?

First thing we need is ice.

Then take water and we're going to put it into the ice.

Then we need ordinary salt.

What the salt does is something really quite amazing.

While it allows the ice to melt,

it actually stops it freezing again.

So that means that the temperature just plunges.

And you can see it going down lower and lower and lower.

So look at how cold this is. Look at the ice on the outside.

If we take a bottle out we can carefully tap it on the table

and there it goes. The freezing process.

The water's a little bit like a playground of children.

you know it's the end of playtime, but they're all still playing.

It takes a whistle or bell, that's the same as the tap on the bottle,

to get them to all fall into line for assembly.

That's what's happening.

There are certain things fast food joints can do that we just can't,

cos we don't have the same fancy equipment at home.

Or do we?

-Have you ever seen a wood-burning pizza oven?

-No.

In some pizza joints, there's a massive thing

-made out of clay and bricks...

-Yeah!

..and they feed it for hours with wood to get it to temperature.

It's a nightmare to make and they cost thousands of pounds.

But, I thought, if they can do it, the Gastronuts must be able to.

Are you with me?

-ALL: Yeah!

-Let's do it!

-I would like to introduce you to the beast.

-Hello, beast.

This is otherwise known as an EPCDIP.

Now, it's basically a garden incinerator and EPCDIP means

Experimental Pizza-Cooking Device In Progress.

It's something that you burn compost in, in your garden.

We're cut a big hole in the front and put some brackets on here,

We'll put a lid on top and fire underneath and, hopefully,

it will get hot enough to cook a pizza.

I've never actually done it. OK? So this really is the first time.

-That's why you say you never succeeded.

-Exactly.

That's why you're helping. Let's start with firelighters.

The average kitchen oven only goes up to 250 degrees Celsius,

which is why proper wood-fired pizza

always tastes better than anything you can make at home.

But will we be able to get our bin hot enough to cook a pizza in?

I don't know how we'll get the top to 350.

-It's like a barbeque.

-Pizza barbeque.

Now we need some of the bigger logs.

OK, let's put the lid on.

And put the hat on.

-What else do we need for pizzas?

-Pizza!

-Pizza.

While the bin heats up, it's time to knead out our dough.

Don't worry about getting messy. You need to do that for 10-15 minutes.

-Wow.

-While you do that, I'm going to rustle us up some drinks.

You're supposed to get messy. Oh, my plaster's come off.

The perfect thing to do with pizza, homemade cola.

It sounds strange, but you can make a passable cola at home.

You need some lemon peel, just put it in some water.

Some orange peel, little bit of lime peel.

You need to take some ginger, just roughly chop it up.

That'll do. Put that in, as well.

Little bit of star anise, crush it up a bit.

Put that in, as well.

I need some citrus acid for a citrus tang to it.

Some lavender. You can probably nick that out of the garden.

You need some kola nut - give them a good old crushing.

Pop that in, and then you need a bit of ground cinnamon.

Little bit of ground nutmeg. Oh!

And then, just for the colour, a bit of gravy browning

just to make it nice and brown.

Boil that for about half an hour

and all the flavour comes out of the spices.

Then you add loads and loads of sugar.

Dark muscovado sugar and lots of white sugar.

And then you strain it off.

When you strain it off, all the gack comes out of it.

You pour that out so you don't ever actually get to drink that.

You get left with this sort of cola syrup that's very, very sugary.

All you need to do is pour a bit of that into a bottle.

It's very, very thick stuff. That's like a flavouring.

Whoo! Ha-ha-ha!

Then you top it up with fizzy water.

They'll never know.

I've got you some homemade Gastronuts cola to try later.

-How are you doing here?

-Look at that.

-That looks fantastic.

We take a little chunk of this.

Roll that one out as thin as you can. The best pizzas are really thin

cos they need to cook super quick.

A margarita pizza is traditionally topped

with basil, tomato and mozzarella

to represent the colours of the Italian flag.

It was named after former queen, Margarita,

who also had a younger sister called Meat Feast.

While the oven's getting hot, I'll treat you to my homemade cola.

Don't expect it to taste exactly like the cola you buy in shops.

There we go, pass them along. Cheers.

-Cheers.

-Cheers. Well done, everyone.

-Cheers.

-Cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers.

-Scrumptious.

-Mm.

-That's nice.

-I think that's delicious.

-It's lovely.

-It was so good, you've finished the lot.

-It's lovely.

The oven should be hot enough, but what you need to put pizza in ovens

-is a special pizza paddle. We haven't got one.

-A shovel.

We've got a shovel. But it's a very scrupulously clean shovel.

First, I need some flour,

so hopefully the pizza won't stick to the shovel. That's perfect.

-IT looks yummy.

-There we go.

-It is yummy.

-Flappy!

-You broke it!

Slightly destroyed. The more love you give to your pizza,

-the better it'll taste.

-I love you, pizza.

There we go. It's still kind of pizza-like.

-Gastronuts, fingers crossed, please.

-Crossed.

-This is the tricky bit.

One, two, three, go!

Well, I did say I'd never tried cooking pizza in a bin before.

-Kiss it! Kiss it!

-Can somebody grab me the spatula?

-Yay!

-I said kiss it!

-It's sort of in there.

-Sort of out of there.

-Yeah.

The pizza's looking pretty...rubbish.

Which is kind of what you'd expect to find in a bin.

-The cheese is melting.

-It's starting to sizzle.

-It does look a mess, doesn't it?

-It looks like a Gastronuts mess.

-It looks like a Gastronut's face.

-Yeah.

Yes. We're cooking pizza in a bin.

OK, guys, I think it's now or never. Can you pass me the tongs, please?

The trusty tongs.

Getting the pizza into the bin was difficult

but getting it out is surely going to be easy...right?

THEY SHOUT OVER EACH OTHER

You're breaking the pizza! That isn't love!

That looks like bread. You're meant to love your pizza!

Oh! I'm getting the cheesy bit!

-that looks nice.

-It looks a mess.

-It looks like quite a nice meal.

It looks like it came out of a bin on a shovel.

But how does our pizza taste?

-Smells like pizza.

-Smells like pizza!

Smells like heaven.

-Go for it, guys.

-That's lovely.

It's better than a takeaway pizza.

Tastes a bit smoky, too, like it's just been properly cooked.

There's that kind of real fire sensation to it

where it's been in a proper, proper oven.

The cheese sticks to my teeth.

If you want to make your own pizza oven, here's what you need to do.

Find one garden incinerator. Cost, about £30.

Cut a hole in the front to get the pizza in and out.

Drills holes and screw in some brackets to support the tray.

You'll need a special stone inside called, helpfully, a pizza stone.

That gets super hot and actually cooks the pizza.

Place some firelighters and logs in the bottom.

You should be able to get these at a DIY or hardware shop.

Wait for half an hour, until the bin is really hot.

After a bit of trial and error,

you should be able to get authentic quality pizza like this

that cooks in just 45 seconds.

I wouldn't never eat fast food.

Everyone needs an indulgence every now and then.

The Gastronuts discovered that when you make these things yourself,

you can make it quicker, cheaper, better for you

and you can make it taste better than the stuff from the takeaways.

It's fantastic. But the big thing we discovered is,

when you make it yourself, you make it an adventure.

If I could tell anyone about takeaway,

I'd tell them not to have it regularly

because there's so much fat and salt in them.

Sometimes you think, "Oh, a bin's for rubbish"

but then you cook a pizza in it and it's really weird.

The fat that goes into a burger. All that stuff, it's really horrible.

Gastronuts is out of this world!

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