“To mimic the taste of conventional meat, Lee and her colleagues recreated the flavors generated during the Maillard reaction — a chemical reaction that occurs between an amino acid and a reducing sugar when heat is added, giving a burger that delicious, charred taste.

They do this by introducing a switchable flavor compound into a gelatin-based hydrogel, to form something called a functional scaffold, which Lee described as the ‘basic composition of the cultured meat.’

The flavor compound, which consists of a flavor group and two binding groups, stays in the scaffold until heated. It ‘switches on’ when it is cooked for five minutes at a temperature of 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit), releasing meaty flavors in a replication of the Maillard reaction, Lee said.”

From CNN.