無肉不歡者的最愛：牛肉巧克力

Red meat hardly seems like the perfect ingredient for delicious chocolate, but a New Zealand-based food scientist is willing to bet that his high-protein, 50% beef chocolate recipe is going to be a hit.
紅色肉類似乎不可能是美味巧克力的完美配方，但是新西蘭的一位食品學家認爲他研製出的高蛋白、含50%牛肉的巧克力將受到歡迎。

Mustafa Farouk, Senior Food Technologist at Ag Research has partnered with Auckland boutique chocolate maker Devonport Chocolates to bring meat chocolate to the masses. The quirky idea of combining the two very different ingredients came to Dr. Farouk one day, while looking at ways of adding value to beef and pondering ways the staple food might be consumed in the future. Mixing beef and chocolate seemed like the perfect way for people to get proteins and other nutrients in meat, because chocolate is such a popular dessert.
穆斯塔法•法魯克是農業研究所的高級食品工藝師，他與奧克蘭市的精品巧克力生產商德文波特合作來向大衆推廣肉類巧克力。一天，法魯克博士正在研究給牛肉增值的方法並考慮未來人們攝入主食的方式，這時他想到了這個將兩種截然不同的食材混合在一起的古怪的點子。由於巧克力是十分受大衆喜愛的甜品，將牛肉和巧克力混合在一起似乎是讓人們攝入肉類中蛋白質和其他營養成分的極佳辦法。

So Farouk took a very lean cut from the hind quarter of a Waikato-raised bovine, turned into what he calls "chocolate butter", which I assume is a sort of fine paste, and handed it over to Devonport Chocolates to use in their confectionery. The resulting combination reportedly has a consistency similar to a Turkish delight, and while the food scientist admits you can tell that it's not regular chocolate, the taste of meat is almost impossible to pick up. In an interview with the New Zealand Herald, Farouk described the taste of beef chocolate as "wonderful", adding that although people are initially put off by the unique dessert when they here it is 50% beef, once they bite into it and taste the rich chocolate flavor, most agree that it is excellent.
想到這裏，法魯克從一頭懷卡託牛後腿那裏取了一份極瘦的肉，加工成他所謂的“巧克力黃油”（我猜這是一種細膩的糊狀物），並將它交給德文波特巧克力公司來製作糖果。據說，最終的混合物嚐起來像土耳其軟糖。雖然食品學家承認你可以辨別出牛肉巧克力不是普通的巧克力，但是你很難分辨出肉味。在一次接受《新西蘭先驅報》的採訪中，法魯克形容牛肉巧克力的味道“絕妙”。法魯克還說，儘管人們最初得知這種特別的巧克力含50%的牛肉時會望而卻步，但是一旦他們嚐了一口，感受到濃烈的巧克力滋味，大多數人都會認爲牛肉巧克力非常棒。

"We knew we could turn meat into different forms, but whether we could actually fool people by making it look like chocolate is what we didn’t know," Dr. Farouk said. "When you try it now, you don't know what you're eating." He adds that it's very easy to change the texture of beef chocolate from very smooth to a dessert that has some body, fiber to it, but from whatever feedback they have released so far, the smooth one is tastier.
“我們知道肉有多種做法，但是能不能把肉做得跟巧克力一樣，‘騙過’人，我們也不知道，”法魯克博士說。“如果你現在嘗一口，你都不會知道你在吃什麼。”他補充說，要改變牛肉巧克力的口感非常簡單，既可以做出非常絲滑的口感，也可以做出較粗的纖維口感，但是從他們目前發佈的反饋來看，絲滑的牛肉巧克力更好吃。

Beef chocolate started out as a crazy experiment, but its creator now wants to make it commercially viable. "Devonport are very excited about it and it's highly likely that we'll partner with them and try to get it into the market," he told . "And once people realise the advantages of having this, I'm sure it will take off." The meat required to make this bizarre treat would cost an estimated $17 a kilogram, and turned into chocolates, it would retail at $2.50 a cube.
牛肉巧克力一開始只是一次瘋狂的試驗，但是它的發明者現在想要對它進行商業推廣。“德文波特對此非常興奮，很有可能我們還會和他們合作，把牛肉巧克力推向市場，”他對新聞網說道。“一旦人們認識到吃這種巧克力的好處，我肯定它會受到熱捧。”據估計，製作一千克這種古怪點心所需的牛肉成本價是17美元，製成巧克力後，每塊的零售價格將是2.5美元。

And this is only the beginning, as Farouk is now experimenting with lamb and venison, to see if they'll work as well as beef. In the past, the scientist also created beef ice-cream, a dairy-free dessert he says was very tasty.
並且，這只是個開始，因爲法魯克現在正在用羊肉和鹿肉做實驗，來看看它們會不會取得像牛肉一樣好的效果。以前法魯克還製作過一種不含奶的牛肉冰激凌，他說這道甜品味道非常好。

Vocabulary

boutique: 精品店
bovine: 牛的；牛科動物
confectionery: 糕點糖果
lean: 瘦的
venison: 鹿肉