Impossible: The Cookbook
The Impossible Burger might just be the most revolutionary new food product of this millennium. So, I was pretty excited when Chronicle Books approached me about writing the text for the company’s cookbook, timed to release in conjunction with the nationwide launch of Impossible in grocery stores.
Then I got 5 pounds of the stuff to play with and got really excited, because it’s shockingly good. A few weeks later, I did a blind taste test, serving some juicy, medium-rare Impossible burgers on brioche buns with smashed avocado, secret sauce, and dill pickle chips to my parents, and my mom, a discriminating diner, said, “Stevie, this is the best hamburger I’ve ever had.” Okay, she says that a lot, but still.
The project was a fun, fast adventure. The company is equal parts Silicon Valley tech start-up, food think-tank, and climate-change movement. And Traci Des Jardins, J. Michael Melton, and the other chefs who contributed recipes were on fire with ideas and positive energy. Yay team. Yay planet Earth.
Role: Writer
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Photography: Aubrie Pick
Food styling: Carrie Purcell
Design: Impossible In-House and Anne Kenady Smith
27 Great Last-Minute Gifts for the Holidays 2021, New York Times/Wirecutter
21 Best Cookbooks of 2020, Delish.com
“This book is perfect for those who are totally new to the plant-based meat game to those who eat so many Impossible burgers they need some new recipes…It’s all here.”
— Delish.com
“The book’s recipes—there are almost 50—were created by chefs and Impossible staff. It’s a crowd-pleasing array.”
— Bloomberg
"It's a collection of chef's recipes, written in an approachable style....The recipes, from a range of influential chefs like Kwame Onwuachi, Traci Des Jardins, Michael Symon and more, are diverse in style and flavor profiles. We tested over two dozen recipes with both Impossible meat and ground beef, and in the majority of testing, there was no distinguishable difference. When I had a preference, it was the Impossible Burger."
– The Dallas Morning News
Writing Sample
MEAT MADE FROM PLANTS. How’s That Possible?
Plant-based meat alternatives have been around for years, always with the same approach: Combine a bunch of ingredients to approximate the taste and texture of meat. We knew we needed to follow a completely different path. So, we began at the end and worked backward, starting with the question, “What is meat, and what makes it so tasty?”
We decided that the only way to make meat from plants—meat that looks, feels, and tastes like animal-based meat—would be to “deconstruct” it at the molecular level and figure out how to replicate all of the components that give it the texture, flavor, aroma, and sizzle we know and love.
Then we found ways to source all of those components from the world of plants.
HEME: The “Magic Ingredient”
One of our earliest and most important discoveries was that the key ingredient responsible for the unique flavors and aromas of meat—from either plants or animals—is heme.
Heme is an iron-containing molecule that occurs naturally in every cell of every animal and plant on the planet. It’s an essential building block of life, most familiar as the molecule that carries oxygen in your blood. Heme is superabundant in animal muscle, and it’s what makes meat uniquely delicious. The fact is, you just can’t make meat without heme. So, we figured out how to make heme from plants. The major source of heme in meat is the protein myoglobin. The roots of soybean plants contain a functionally identical protein called leghemoglobin.
But digging up soybean plants to harvest heme is neither efficient nor sustainable. So, we took DNA from soy plants and inserted it into genetically engineered yeast. We ferment this yeast in tanks, in a process similar to what you’d find in a brewery. But instead of producing alcohol, our yeast cells multiply and produce heme in essentially unlimited quantities.
The heme in Impossible™ is identical to the heme humans have been consuming for hundreds of thousands of years in conventional meat. It delivers the unique taste and iron content of beef, using a tiny fraction of the natural resources. And it’s safety-verified by America’s top food-safety experts and peer-reviewed academic journals.
Like the heme in animal meat, our heme interacts with the nutrients and minerals in Impossible™ as it cooks. It browns and “bleeds,” and its flavor actually changes from raw to cooked, just like meat from animals.
Now you know how and why we do what we do. Where do you fit in? That’s easy. By cooking, sharing, and eating Impossible meat, with a little help from this cookbook.
© 2020 Impossible Foods Inc.