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-percent beef chocolate recipe is going to be a hit.

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.

So Farouk took a very lean cut from the hind quarter of a Waikato-raised bovine, turned into what he calls “chocolate butter,” most likely 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 people 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 hear it is 50-percent beef, once they bite into it and taste the rich chocolate flavor, most agree that it is excellent. 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,” Farouk said.

The meat required to make this bizarre treat would cost an estimated US$17 a kilogram, and turned into chocolates, it would retail at US$2.5 a cube.

红肉似乎不可能是美味巧克力的完美配方，但是新西兰的一位食品学家认为他研制出的高蛋白、含50%牛肉的巧克力会受欢迎。

穆斯塔法•法鲁克是农业研究所的高级食品工艺师，他与奥克兰市的精品巧克力生产商德文波特合作来向大众推广肉类巧克力。一天，法鲁克博士正在研究给牛肉增值的方法并考虑未来人们食用牛肉的新方式，他想到了这个将两种截然不同的食材混合在一起的古怪点子。由于巧克力是十分受大众喜爱的甜品，将牛肉和巧克力混合在一起似乎是让人们摄入肉类蛋白质和其他营养成分的极佳办法。

想到这里，法鲁克从一头怀卡托牛后腿那里取了一份极瘦的肉，加工成他所谓的“巧克力黄油”（可能是一种细腻的糊状物），并将它交给德文波特巧克力公司来制作糖果。据说，最终的混合物尝起来像土耳其软糖。虽然食品学家承认大家可以辨别出牛肉巧克力不是普通的巧克力，但是很难分辨出肉味。在一次接受《新西兰先驱报》的采访中，法鲁克形容牛肉巧克力的味道“绝妙”。法鲁克还说，尽管人们最初得知这种特别的巧克力含50%的牛肉时会望而却步，但是一旦他们尝了一

口，感受到浓烈的巧克力滋味，大多数人都会认为牛肉巧克力非常棒。

牛肉巧克力一开始只是一次疯狂的试

验，但是它的发明者现在想要进行商业推

广。“德文波特对此非常兴奋，很可能我们会和他们合作把牛肉巧克力推向市场，”他说。据估计，制作这种古怪糖果所需的牛肉成本价是17美元一公斤，制成巧克力后，每块的零售价将是2.5美元。(Chinadaily.com.cn)

    Words to Learn 相关词汇

   【主要产品】zhǔyào chǎnpǐn staple a chief commodity or production of a place

    【吓退】xiàtuì put off to repel or repulse, as from bad manners