Like a top-drawer Folger's Crystals switcheroo, Benu executive chef Corey Lee, the former chef de cuisine at The French Laundry, developed a fake shark-fin soup that's fooling even the most rabid fans of the taboo brew. Cecilia Chang, the lady credited with introducing Northern Chinese cooking to America, couldn't even tell the difference. "She had no idea it was faux," Lee said.

But how does he do it? Well, according to The New Yorker, with all sorts of deliciousness. And science—lots of science too.

To prepare his version, which is served (untraditionally) with steamed black truffle custard, [Lee] said, “We make a tang—soup with broth—a double bouillon with chicken, Chinese ham, aromatics, and Shaoxing wine.” The “shark fin” texture—he describes it as “gelatinous and brittle at the same, like properly cooked jellyfish”—comes from treating the broth with hydrocolloids, a procedure he arrived at with the help of some food scientists at the San Diego branch of C.P. Kelco, a major producer of culinary and household gums. “The research involved having real shark fin, so they could have a reference point,” he said. “I prepared it and sent it down.”

Mmm, Benu's tang.

The sale of shark fins and shark-fin soup, if you recall, will be banned in California come New Year's Day. The mass collecting of said fins not only poses a feasible threat to sharks, but to underwater ecosystems. Celebrities from Alice Waters (who once jested that her last meal would be shark-fin soup, but recently signed a Humane Society pledge to eschew the soup) to former NBA star Yao Ming have publicly renounced the traditional Chinese cuisine soup.

[via Inside Scoop]