French chef Pierre Gagnaire has created the world’s first “entirely synthetic gourmet dish” and unveiled it today in Hong Kong. In collaboration with the molecular gastronomy pioneer Hervé This, Gagnaire has created a dish made not from natural flora and fauna but from basic molecules.

The new dish’s ingredients are ascorbic acid, glucose, citric acid and 4-O-a-glucopyranosyl-D-sorbitol. The result, says the Times, is “a starter of jelly balls tasting of apple and lemon; creamy on the inside and crackling on the outside”.

“If you use pure compounds, you open up billions and billions of new possibilities,” says This. “It’s like a painter using primary colours or a musician composing note by note.”

In an email last month This noted, “Don’t be afraid: if Pierre is doing it, it will be good …”