Restaurant horrifies diners with Bushtucker Trial-style fried testicles
A posh restaurant has left diners divided after serving up a 'Bushtucker Trial’ dish made of fried lamb testicles.
The trendy eatery, Elnecot, introduced the item on its new menu yesterday with the catchy title “Croq and balls”. It's a croquette dish made up of lamb belly and testicles. It is served with a summer fruit agrodolce - an Italian sweet and sour sauce.
A plate of the fried delicacies will set customers back £9 and is available to order on the dinner menu for the Manchester-based restaurant. The testicle dish is designed to share along with its other new plates, including burrata, spicy fries, pork belly and chicken wings.
But diners have been left divided by the shocking menu item, with some likening it to a Bushtucker Trial on ITV’s, 'I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here'. In 2012, MP Nadine Norris went head-to-head with former Coronation Street star Helen Flanagan and ate a plate of lamb testicles.
Diner Dianne Orr said: “It’s like a Bushtucker Trial, while John OReilly said: “It’s b*llocks.” Ian Boswell claimed the move was simply a PR stunt, adding it was: “Publicity seeking" but James Rawlinson was much more relaxed, adding: “Why not? If you're gonna eat meat then at least use the full animal.”
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The Elnecot menu (Jam Press/Elnecot)
It is one of the dishes on the menu (Jam Press/Elnecot)Chef Michael Clay told the Manchester Evening News: "We've used all different types of offal since we opened and it's appeared on our menu a couple of time before. The reason being that first of all their cheap, secondly, if you're skilled enough you can make them taste nice.
"It's good if you can put something on the menu that people are sort of apprehensive about but show them that actually it can be really tasty depending on what you do with it. Also, it's still a cheap cut of meat that keeps the price low and it's in line with my overall cooking philosophy really of using all the parts.
"Half the cuts we can use people haven't heard of because they're not available in the supermarket but they're often more tasty than some of the usual suspects. And not just different cuts of meat, but things like snails we've had on the menu from Dorset, but people in this country just don't eat them - and they're delicious."
In terms of how the dish is made and the flavour of the lamb testicles, Michael says it's used in a way that is similar to how béchamel sauce is, for texture and binding purposes. "You've got the lovely flavours from the lamb belly which is again not used that much and is quite cheap. We did previously have a testicle dish where they were the main component, and lets say they were a little sloppy, so this time we're using just a part of it in the croquette and because it's very rich we're serving it with a sweet and sour sauce to balance it.
"By using cheaper cuts it's part of that bigger puzzle and wanting to get your margins right across your food and drink. I think we've always been reasonably priced since we started, we've undercharged especially when we started as there wasn't much around us at that point.
"I wouldn't ever put anything on the menu that wasn't nice and tasty or that I didn't think people wouldn't enjoy. And we've used several times of the years and each times we've made tasty dishes and people realise that and have like them."
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