In Vitro Recipe #8: Bone Pickers

There’s something deeply satisfying about eating meat from the bone. Once meat will be disembodied and grown in a lab, diners will be deprived of one of the primal pleasures we share with wolves and lions. Made of cultured meat grown around an ersatz bone scaffold, bone pickers satisfy our carnal appetite for gnawing and ripping. The bone doubles as a useful handle, just like a chicken’s leg bone or a crown roast of lamb, so diners don’t have to get their fingers dirty. After a meal, a pile of beautiful, abstracted bones remains, which can be handed to the family dog or recycled to create the next round of bone pickers.

Middle Eastern Bone Skewers

600 grams lamb-style bone pickers

1 medium onion, cut in quarters

1 garlic clove

4 parsley sprigs

3 tablespoons lemon juice

½ teaspoon lemon zest

½ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground coriander

½ tablespoon salt

Vegetable oil

Yoghurt sauce

1. Combine the onion, garlic, parsley, lemon juice and zest, cumin, coriander and salt in a blender. Process until smooth.

2. Pour the marinade into a resealable plastic bag. Add the bone pickers, turning to coat. Refrigerate for at least six hours, preferably overnight.

3. Light a grill or preheat a grill pan. Remove the bone pickers from the bag, shaking off the excess marinade. Brush each picker with a light coating of vegetable oil. Grill for about five minutes, turning occasionally, until charred around the edges. Serve the bone pickers drizzled with yoghurt sauce.

From The In Vitro Meat Cookbook: 45 lab grown meat dishes you cannot cook yet.