What Is Meat Fruit_ London's Fruit Made Out of Chicken Meat — The Meat Show

So the meat show is coming to you from swank Knightsbridge today And we are in front of the Mandarin Oriental one of the most exclusive hotels in all of London Within that hotel is one of my favorite restaurants. It's dinner by Heston Blumenthal It is a restaurant that is informed and inspired by the heritage of British cooking going back as far as there are British recipes So you're gonna get things from the 12th and the 13th century But sort of updates them for the modern palette and the modern sensibility One of the dishes that most renowned for is called meat fruit I'm gonna go in there and talk to Ashley Palmer Watts and he's gonna tell me all about what this mysterious dishes So before we get into it, well, I mean what is meat fruit succinctly, okay So if we start off with the Finnish meat fruit, it's a chicken liver parfait inside a mandarin jelly It looks as if it is a mandarin with the texture that I'll show you It looks simple, but it takes three days to make there's a huge amount of complexity behind that The balance of the the gel which is mandarin flavored to the parfait inside is the right ratio So when you actually eat this and spread it on the grilled bread, you'll get in the condiment with the parfait Tell me about this fish how it came about and how it slots into the ethos of dining here I mean, we always start looking backwards at history. We take inspiration from that It sparks an idea that will tie into something that we think may work So basically how we make the meat fruit is chicken livers butter eggs We make an alcohol reduction with shallots and garlic a little bit of time Day two we put it into semi-sphere mold You heat them together with low torch put them together put a spike in wrap it in cling film and Then put it back in the freezer. Then we take a mixture here of Mandarin juice and then we dip the meat fruit in Let it refreeze when it's gone on frosting we give it a second dip Then we take it off. Let it defrost overnight and then they're ready. Okay. Well, here we go. I mean look at that thing. It is just It's uncanny how much like an orange looks Okay, well here goes the first bite right way Such a familiar flavor like plastic for waterine chicken liver Just a delicious mouthfeel. It's very gentle. It's not it's not really sort of dominating anything and then you get this lovely delicate Gelatin wrap around it, but it just does add a sweetness and a really nice sort of Just a counterpoint to that richness of the fat then you've got this lovely bread perfumed and scented with thyme and rosemary and garlic It's not overpowering the way like a whole lobe of foie gras would be so this must be on any carnivores tour list because It's really complex. You do have that richness and the foie gras itself has that those deep mineral rich flavors Mandarin tang it's not really citrusy, but there's a sweetness. They're absolutely delicious There's a really pleasing textural contrast between the mousse and the crunchiness of the bread. It's very aromatic Really very delicious dish I appreciate this immensely the first time I tried it But after seeing how much craft and time and manpower goes into this thing, I'm really impressed with it I like it because it's whimsical. It's playful yet It's you know, very serious cooking and I guess that's kind of what the meat shows all about Thank you for watching for the next episode. Click here now