Chef Reviews CRAZY Kitchen Gadgets

(bright funky music) – Right then, Ebbers. We’ve got a series of kitchen gadgets that are either gonna make you scream in delight, or just give you a fright. Are you ready? – I’m so ready. – Right, lift the cloche. Ooh! – Careful. – It’s a light one. – Ahhh… – I would’ve thought a chef would know what these are. – I have never seen these. – Okay. – Ooh. – But I think I’ve seen something similar and I never really understood why they worked. Stickers you put on fresh fruit to extend their shelf life. –

Well, Ebbers, here comes the science part. Ebbers, these are the Nanology Fruit and Veg Savers. They double or triple the storage life of fruit and veg or salads just by placing one of the Nanology Fruit and Veggie Savers in your fridge, storage boxes or fruit bowls. So, the science bit is that fruits, vegetables and salads emit ethylene gas as they ripen. And this harmless gas speeds up the decaying process. That’s what causes all of the fruits to go off. So the Fruit and Veg Savers absorb the ethylene gas and that means that the fruit and

veg will go off far slower than if they weren’t there. – These can be put in a fruit bowl, in the fridge, in a cupboard, wherever you wanna keep your fruit. – They’re

organic, they’re toxin free. So they’re completely safe to keep with your food and they’re gonna help it last longer. – How do we try it? – Bring in the bowls of food. – Ah. I see what you’ve done. – So this time last week, we asked Kush to wrap some cling film or cellophane around two bowls of fruit. One of them has a

Fruit and Veg Saver disc in it and the other one doesn’t. Shall we do some taste testing? – I’m gonna be honest, J, I think we need to leave another week, ’cause they both look identical. (time travel wipe whooshes) – Another week has passed. – Yeah, there are some differences now. – Excellent. – Before we even unwrap, in our non-Fruit Saver, the banana is sweatier and has a furry tip. But in the Fruit Saver one, it is a darker colour but has got contact with the clingfilm, that might have affected it. The orange and the

grape looks sweatier. Over here we have more furry whites. If I had to pick which one still looked fresher, it would be the one without the Saver in it. – No. But you said it’s furry. – I think it’s all gonna come down to texture and when you taste it. (chuckles) Oh, that is a- – Is it ripe? – That is a ripe fruit bowl. There’s a lot of tropical flavour coming out of that. – Interesting. The stuff from the top I’m not worried about. It’s the stuff that’s been- – Underneath. – Yeah. – Slightly

squished a little bit. – A bit of peer pressure. – Yeah. – This has been at room temperature in this studio for now 14 days, and these blueberries look absolutely fine. – So is the saving tip use clingfilm? – Ah. Ah. – Ooh. – Underneath, we have an avocado-grape fusion. They have fused together with a furry coat. Are you ready for my sweaty banana? (Jamie chuckling) – Why did he wink at you at the same time? – I don’t know. – Almost dripping with rottiness and incredibly soft. – Any good for banana bread? – Bananas-

– He’s gonna squeeze it out. – Shouldn’t do that. – Oh. – That is a very, very soft banana. But to your point, absolutely fine for banana bread. Whereas when we get into our Fruit Saver one, smells fresher, doesn’t look fresher, but they smell like there is less… – Ethylene gas. – Yes, exactly that. Little white moulds. Definitely more colour on the bananas. Slightly less sweaty. Feel just as soft. Have more coloration, slightly different texture. Blueberries, just as good. You know when you get a punnet of soft berries and you’re eating away and one catches

you off guard? – Yeah. – Look fine. Taste like they’re on the edge. The one with the Veg Saver is slightly worse in flavour. And some of them just starting to catch that white fluff. This is not what I was hoping for. – No. – The science made so much sense. – Avocado is an interesting one. In the non-Fruit Saver, little bit of white above the top. Still very, very firm. (avocado knocking) – You what? – After two weeks in the non-Saver. This one, equally, a very small amount here but completely soft. – What… And

therefore, I’m confused. Because the one with the Fruit and Veg Saver has not done as good a job. I slightly regret doing that. – Look silly now don’t you? – Yeah, I just slightly regret doing that. I did it for effect and I got the effect. Now I regret this. This, it’s absorbed the smell, but it hasn’t stopped the rotting. – One of the really surprising things is, this science exists elsewhere. If you buy like a high-end fridge, it will have something to take away the ethylene gas. – To make your food last longer. –

To make your food last longer. So the science exists, the science works. – Yes. – Really confused why that didn’t. – And I don’t think we could have done that much fairer. Same bowl, same fruit, both wrapped up. Same conditions. All I learned is to reduce your fresh fruit waste at home, clingfilm your fruit bowl. – Well, do you wanna have a guess at how much the Saver discs are? – I’m gonna say they’re probably reusable. Four quid each. Was it two in a bag? Eight quid? (register rings) – It’s 3.99 for three discs. –

Oh, well if you want your fruit to rot a bit quicker, that’s a bargain. – Well… – Okay. – Wow. Okay. – Good. Do you have a rating and review for us? Rather looking forward to this one. – Based on this experiment alone, and that’s all we’ve got to go on. We do these experiments so you can savour your time. Don’t bother. – Oh wow, what a good start. – Stars? – One out of five. (bright music) – Okay Ebbers, on to the next. Lift the cloche. – Nice pastel colours, whatever they are. – Did

you bring these in from home? – I mean, I know… (Jamie laughs) – I don’t… They’re no use to me anymore. – They look to me- – Yeah. (Jamie laughs) – Like mini, mini hair straighteners. I’ve got no idea why anyone would want to use these in the kitchen. I’ve seen people try to cook breakfast in a hotel room by using like a trouser press. – Your guesses are finished at either bacon cookers or trouser press. – Okay. No, no. (Barry laughs) What would you need to heat? – Can I give you a hint? Don’t

think about the food. Think about what the food comes in. – Ah, okay. So it is good for resealing packagings. – Yes, Ben! This is the Mini Bag Sealer. The sealer can seal a variety of plastic bags, snack bags, foil bags, chip bags… (record scratch) – Pardon? – And et cetera. – What did you, what was that? – Chip bags. – I did not hear chip. – Chip bags! – No, I… That’s not what you said. – I did. – No. – Definitely said chip bags. – Because you do need to seal those other ones,

’cause it can smell. – Now that makes sense to me, I’m on board. – Want some snacks? – Yeah. – Want to save some snacks for later? – Or that. – Oh yeah. (laughs) – (chuckles) Yeah. – Genuine problem in my life. Sometimes, there are flavours of crisps that are sold in bigger bags and you live alone and you just fancy a few crisps. – You just do the folding trick, surely? – Yeah, yeah. I don’t understand how it’s gonna work. – Also, it’s tinfoil. – Tinfoil bag and tinfoil does not melt. Now try just

a, the thinner layer. So work your way across the top. – Yeah, see I think that’s gonna be the right method. I mean the irony is, you could have eaten the rest of the packet in the time that it’s taken to do this. – This has taken a minute so far, Jamie. – Yeah. And? – So our hair straighteners, or equivalent, took a minute or so to heat up. But then they do indeed crimp and seal a premium bag of chips (crisps rattling) perfectly. So if you’ve got big sharing bags that you want to seal

up, that works nicely. – Let’s have a bar of chocolate next. – Oh, now, I know what you’re thinking here. You don’t want to seal it too close to the chocolate, otherwise you’re just gonna melt the chocolate. That’s how I open all my chocolate bars. (Barry sniggers) – So that’s ideal because then you can remove what you need and you’re left with another foil package. – Is that alright or is that melting? – I mean it’s definitely sealing, but only by melting onto the… – Right. – Now what you’ve done is you’ve had your individually

wrapped chocolate bar- (Jamie sniggers) And what you’ve done is seal in your other four individually wrapped chocolate bars. – Yes. – I’ll take that. Take that back to the shop. – That is for… Yes, take it back. – There’s one missing. – My only concern with resealing chocolate bars is that plastic melts really quickly and it doesn’t give off particularly very pleasant fumes. – Interestingly, so many bags you now buy already have a re-close function, including this one. You take your portion of chocolate and it has a reseal function on it. – Do your upside

down shaky, shaky test. (packet rattling) – It works. – Every couple of weeks, I open a new pack of coffee beans. Don’t use ’em all up. By the time I go back to that packet, they’ve lost a little bit of life. – Because there is nothing better than that first opening of coffee beans and that first waft, and you never quite get the same again. So, now they’re open. I’m gonna put a bunch of them into my coffee machine. Knock out excess air. In come the gadge. Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Ebbers shake test.

(packet rattling) – That is bold. – You can’t say that they don’t work. – That is an example of where I feel like, in my life, more useful. – Okay. – No matter how hard you try, you couldn’t eat all of these. Three, two, one, three, two, one, (M&Ms rattle) – Now when we got these online, they came as a pair. I’m not sure why. But how much you think we paid for this pair of Bag Sealers? – 18 Pounds. Nine quid each. – Hmm. We came in at 20.99 pounds. (register rings) – Not, not

too bad. – With that in mind, are you gonna leave a review? – Tacky and laughable at first sight, but you’ll want to give them a go to seal the deal. Three and a half stars. – Oh! – Oh. That’s better than I thought. – Yeah. – How many times have you rustled round in the drawer of the freezer and pulled out the bag of frozen peas? And if you haven’t got the clip on properly, you’ve pea’d all over the place and it’s just a pain. This- (Jamie chuckling) (sealers snapping) Would solve that. – Let’s

do number three. (Barry laughs) (upbeat music) Do you want to lift the cloche on number three. – Oh no. Peaky peaky under the cloche, which wasn’t quite fitting, I thought, “Not another toaster,” but no. I was saved by the fact that this is the Bacon Express. – Ebbers, “Welcome to a healthier way to cook bacon to delicious, crispy perfection, with the SMART Bacon Express.” Trademark. “It can cook up to six strips of regular or thick cut bacon in just minutes. No need to flip, simply adjust the illuminated dial timer to your desired cooking preference and

allow the unique vertical cooking method to drain away fat and grease for fast, healthy cooking.” How do you cook your bacon? – Without the need for another appliance in my very small kitchen, I use the same thing I use for everything else. A baking tray or a pan. Yes, I’m annoyed. Like… – Yes… – But who makes this stuff? – Enough of the negativity. Plug it in, pre-heat it and we’ll get you some bacon. – (slams hatch shut) We’ve plugged it in. We’ve burnt off the manufacturing grease. The factor of every new oven and toaster.

They always say that. In the spirit of fair testing, we also have three different thicknesses of bacon. Which one are we going for? – So it says that it works best with store bought, thick cut bacon. You can do up to six slices at the same time. Don’t overlap them. – Move it to thick cut crispy, (button bleeps) push the button and wait for it to scream at me 10 times. We have done many, many, many kitchen gadget episodes previously. So many of the gadgets are designed to do one thing really well. It probably works,

we’ll see. But why? – You’ve already got a toaster. – You’ve already got… No. (Jamie chuckles) You’d have to eat bacon incredibly regularly to justify having this out on your work surface. Ironically, I’m starting to smell good bacon smells, as in I’m gonna have a peek. I don’t know if that’s gonna reset the time. – Can’t help yourself, can’t you? – I think we’re waiting on the timer. We’ve gotta trust. – I know we put in thick cut bacon and I know we put it to… (Bacon Express beeping) – Where’s the trust? – His anxiety

was going off the hook there. – Where’s the faith? – Are we ready for leather? – This is gonna be an idea. – Who wants bacon like that?! The beauty about cooking bacon in a pan is you take the bacon out, the pan is still searingly hot. It goes straight to the sink, quick swill round while it’s hot, put it on the draining board. The pan is still hot so it dries in seconds as well. And then you have your bacon sandwich and you’re done. This, you have to wait for it to cool down to

pull it apart. Then you have to individually clean three different fiddly elements. What a waste of everyone’s life. – Right, okay. Before, Ebbers, you get carried away, let’s try the other end of the spectrum. – Let’s do some streaky. – This is terrible. – Oh dear. – It’s so overcooked- – Oh dear. – But not crispy. It’s just leathery. Okay. It’s preheated. (timer beeps) – These are longer. – Oh, see, they’ll go all the way over. Yeah. (bacon sizzling) (hatch slams) – Do that. (button beeps) Do that. – So what setting have you put it

on? – Thin bacon. Crispy. – Lovely. (screen wipe whooshes) – If you are enjoying this, there are some small things you can do that make a big difference to us. Like the video, (button clicks) subscribe if you aren’t, (button clicks) click the notification bell (bell rings) and select All. (button clicks) Thanks. (screen wipe whooshes) (Bacon Express beeps) – It’s beeping. – Seven minutes. – The best part is the top where the fat hasn’t been able to drip away. (they laugh) – Right. – Yeah. Do you know what? Not bad. Like with all bacon, it’ll crisp

up as it cools as well. But I wouldn’t say it’s crispy. I would say it’s cooked. I’d say that is an absolute state. Shall we have a look at our drip tray? – Yeah. How much healthier is this bacon now? – You should wait for that to cool down. – There are instructions to that bit. – No one’s got time to wait for stuff to cool down. Like genuinely. Bacon is a typical morning thing, right? You’re trying to tell me that everyone’s got time to sit and wait for things to cool down in the morning?

This appliance frustrates me because of its complete impracticality. – Ebbers, now you’ve cooked your bacon, would you like it served on a beautiful dish? – Yes. It might cheer me up. – So this is our Cheat’s Tamago and Bacon Donburi. It’s from our Taste of Japan Recipe pack, which you can get on our Sidekick app. So in the official recipe, we would say to bake the bacon in an oven for about 10 minutes whilst you carry on cooking everything else. How do you think the Bacon Express has performed in comparison? – Same time, by the

time you’ve preheated it, laid it in. Except you’re now left with four different parts of the appliance to wash up. And I’m not convinced the results are any better. In fact, I’d say possibly worse. What’s good is the dish and the plate of food is delicious because it’s been tried and tested. I’m not sure this has. (Jamie whistles) – It’s brutal, shall we, shall we do the cost? – Yeah. How much do you think we paid for the SMART Bacon Express? – I can imagine $40 or 35 quid. (register rings) – Ebbers, we paid 55

pounds. – Well, you got what you wanted from that money, this reaction. That’s all you wanted, wasn’t it? – Hm. Yeah. – Yeah. – Yeah. Do you want to leave an online review? – I bought one of these, I used it once. Would I recommend it? Not until pigs fly. 0.7 out of five. (Jamie sniggers) – Good with maths, there, weren’t I? (they laugh) – Ish. – I hope you’ve got a good one lined up for the last one. (upbeat music) – Ready for this, Ebbers? – It can’t be any worse than the Bacon Express.

– That’s the spirit! Lift the cloche. – Oh, it’s got a good, erm, – What is he doing? – Grip and button for plunging, grinding, milling. – This Is a… – A spice grinder or a coffee grinder. – Or all of the above. – You imagine things you want finer than they already come. – You couldn’t get any closer. The FinaMill and FinaPods, “The easiest way to grind whole spices of all shapes and sizes. Fall in love with fresh ground spices again.” – You know that on this channel we have been in love with the

likes of the Mini Chopper. And it is great for pastes and pestos and chopping things, but it’s not great for spices. It’s not really designed for spices. – The FinaPods, you can fill with a selection of spices, of all different shapes and sizes. And you can also use them for storing the spices as well. You just clip in the seasonings that you want for your dish. And then, the button on top, and then use the little light to help you guide the spice onto your dish. – Okay, so that’s a push-in, push… Okay. (motor whirring)

I don’t get the light, but I’m intrigued to see how the spices grind. Can I grind please? – Of course, Ebbers. (J splutters with laughter) Kush has prepared a selection of delicious dishes for you. Some he made up on the spot. (chuckles) – What I love is, Kush’s application of using leftovers. – Now I’d like you to create a selection of complimentary blends. – Okay. – Ebbers, also, you’ve got two more here. – Ooh, what are these? – You’ve got a thick and a thin one. So that’s for like if you’ve got massive spices, there’s

one there with a paddle in there to turn it. And for the finer ones, it helps it push them down. – Okay. – All right. I’m gonna start with our dumplings. (upbeat music) So I’ve gone for salt and pepper, but szechuan pepper, sesame, chilli, and clove. For our main course, we’ll go for the more herby stuff. And then let’s go max. (bright music) (motor whirring) Whenever we do these things, I’m going in blind. I don’t really know what it’s doing and therefore I’m throwing a mixture of stuff in as a bit of a guessing game.

Was that the best stuff to put in? The sesame seeds have come out whole, but the chilli, the szechuan peppercorns, they’ve been nicely ground. What happens when you put this in and turn it upside down and move it around, is the spices sort themselves in order of either weight, density or size. – Yeah. – So all that was really grinding was mostly sesame and salt. A little bit of fleck of spice. Now we know what’s gonna happen, I’m even more worried about this ’cause the bay leaf is definitely gonna rise to the top and the

bay leaves are doing absolutely nothing. – He said it! – Yay! – He said it. – That’s on… – Clip that. – That, yeah. – Clip that. “The bay leaves are doing absolutely nothing.” – Which is a shame- – We all heard it. – Which is a shame ’cause they’re usually one of the most- – Too late, too late. – Game changing ingredients out there. – Too late. – We got it, we got it. – What’s the dish? It looks amazing. – Some nice noodles, nicely charred veg and with a salty, herby blend. Maybe we

are trying to run before we can walk. ‘Cause what we’ve done is looked at this and thought that would be a fun way of personalising your own spice blends. But on closer inspection, every photo and instruction suggests just one at a time. So let’s just try cocoa nibs on banana. (bright music) (motor whirring) (Barry snorts with laughter) – Ebbers, did you, did you put it on properly? – Oh, evidently not. Thought I did. (Ben sighs) – Oh, Ebbers, that’s a big sigh. – Whole spices typically used in spiced, maybe curries for example. There’s gonna be

four or five different whole spices that you need. To have to empty your little pot each and every time because you’re not gonna store ’em in there ’cause they’re not airtight. So in terms of volatile freshness, you’re still gonna have to store them in that. You’re still gonna have to put them into that. You’re gonna have to tip it out each time. I don’t think people can be bothered. – Okay, well shall we move on to price then? – Oh dear. – How much do you reckon that is? – If you’re paying more than 30

quid for it, I’m not convinced. – So for the FinaMill and two FinaPods, it comes to 49.99. (register rings) Two for the price of one, some would say. – That’s a really good point. – How much are these individually? – 13 pounds. – For me, these individually are incredibly expensive versions of this, but not as good. ‘Cause these don’t stack and they’re not airtight. ‘Cause I get that this is quick release, but no one is affording dozens of these. Here’s my thing, I’m not sure it does half of what it claims to do. Look at

how much mess there is. I think it just oversells a promise that it absolutely doesn’t deliver on. – So Ebbers, what’s your online review? How many stars. – After a brief play, this does a fraction of things it promises but it does them well. Two and a half out of five. And depending whether you read that review forwards or backwards will change its sentiment. – Right. Well, over to you in the comments. Comment down below, let us know. Would you buy any of the gadgets? Would you have more of a smile on your face than

Ebbers has had today? – Wouldn’t be hard.