San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Recipes make meatless possible
Yes, ‘Impossible: The Cookbook’ is an ad for its product, but it’s fun and salutes local chefs
Impossible Burger entered the culinary world in 2016, when bigname chefs like Traci Des Jardins and Chris Cosentino started serving the shockingly beefy, vegan patties in their restaurants. It took years for the local product to spread through the country’s independent restaurants, fast food empires and, finally, Bay Area grocery stores in April. Now, home cooks have access to another product by Redwood City’s Impossible Foods, the maker of Impossible Burger: a cookbook.
Published by Chronicle Books, “Impossible: The Cookbook” demonstrates the versatility of the faux meat in 40 recipes. There are allvegan versions of Jamaican patties, dumplings, chilaquiles, Bolognese and, of course, some creative burgers.
Given Impossible Foods’ home in the Bay Area, several recipes come from local chefs. Cosentino of meat emporium Cockscomb provides a recipe for an Italianinflected burger made with marinara and a crispy Parmesan wafer; Tanya Holland of soul food gem Brown Sugar Kitchen treats the vegan meat like sausage for biscuits with gravy; and Douglas Keane of Cyrus fame includes his twist on gyros, loaded with Greek salad.
But the biggest voice in the book belongs to Des Jardins, who gushes about the product in an essay and also provides several recipes, including for pho, tacos dorados and lomo saltado, the Peruvian stirfry traditionally made with beef, French fries and soy sauce.
Flipping through the colorful pages, highcontrast photos and wine pairing recommendations — yes, there are wine pairing recommendations — I was impressed by the book’s diversity and production value. But I also couldn’t shake the feeling that the book is an advertisement for Impossible Burger — essentially a 144page brochure that costs $29.99. It feels a little gross in a way that a restaurant cookbook does not; to make anything from “Impossible: The Cookbook,” you have to buy the company’s product.
There was no doubting the deliciousness of the results, though. Des Jardins’ burger — the same one she served at Jardinere, smeared with avocado and caramelized onions — tasted fancy for a backyard hangout without being too cumbersome to make. An Ethiopian sambusainspired dish from Kwame Onwuachi, a James Beard Awardwinning chef in Washington, D.C., packed a complex mix of warm spices and creamycrunchy textures yet easily came together in less than 30 minutes.
Perhaps the most valuable part of the book is a threepage guide explaining the subtle differences between cooking ground beef and Impossible Burger. The vegan meat, which is sold at local Safeway stores in 12ounce blocks, cooks faster than beef, doesn’t shrink the same way a normal burger would on a grill and acts thirstier when added to sauces. So, no, it’s still not a perfect standin for beef, but it’s pretty close.
Janelle Bitker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: janelle.bitker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @janellebitker