Fake Meat: Real Food for Vegan Appetites

With so many vegan meat and dairy products appearing in supermarket shelves recently I had got out of the habit of making my own but this book was what I needed to spur me back into doing it, and they are far superior! This book probably isn't for the new cook, and even in my very well stocked kitchen there are a few ingredients I don't have BUT I know that the recipes will work and be worth buying them for. So far I have made the steaks - these were simply incredible and one of the best meals I have ever made. The cacio e pepe e salsiccio is probably one of the easier and quicker recipes and was phenomenally good, and the lobster rolls, using parsnips, are genius. If you don't want to make your own meats, lots of the recipes will work with store bought alternatives for quicker variations too. Can't wait to make more from this book.

Fabulous book….very enticing recipes, lots of seitan recipes and then follow on recipes to use said seitan. There are also other ‘non-meat’ substitutes. I made the shredding chicken and then made the ‘big hugs’ soup….very tasty, after shredding and giving a quick fry to brown a little, it looked exactly like chicken and smelt like roast chicken. Only down side was my cat was so desperate to have some of the shredded chicken as I was actually shredding it, that he got fed up of me ignoring him and bit on my leg! Never done that before…….

Every cookbook has a few standout recipes that carrie it, but in this book nearly every page has one!!! I’m so impressed by how loaded it is with original and next level recipes, the title and cover really don’t do it justice! The book is so much more than just recipes for fake meat. Firstly, the ‘meat’ recipes are varied, from seitan to whole food ingredients. Secondly, it doesn’t stop there. It teaches you how to make different meats, cheeses and egg and offers an array of recipes to use them! Everything looks incredible and I seriously want to try everything - which is so rare in any cookbook! Truly amazing!

Beautiful book. Lovely recipes with lots of photos.

I love this book! So far, I've made several recipes and all have been simple and easy. There's a few recipes in there where you'd need to order an ingredient or two online, but still really simple and very delicious. Highly recommend.

Conosco l'autrice ed ho già acquistato altri suoi libri. Ricette molto buone, talvolta impegnative.... Per chi vuole sperimentare.

Everything G ood

Isa Chandra Moskowitz, aka the vegan chef/goddess/recipe mastermind, has done it again! Like many vegans, I find myself craving the texture and taste of meat, and especially how full I'd feel after eating it. This book is the answer to my prayers. Superficial things first: this book is beautiful. The pictures of the recipe almost had me licking the pages. (Cookbooks are vegan, just fyi.) Onto deeper matters, the sheer number and variety of recipes in this book is a wonder to behold. Whether you're craving stew, drumsticks, loaded nachos, wings, potpie, pizza... Isa has you covered. I made the meatball recipe from a list of easy to buy, affordable ingredients (most of which I already had lying around). Not only did they come together with minimal skill required on my part, THEY WERE SO FREAKING DELICIOUS!!! Light and chewy and sauce-absorbent just as they should be. As a bonus, the recipe yielded a generous amount so we had food for the week. And they were so filling that I had that rare experience of being absolutely STUFFED without feeling gross. Thank you Isa!! Unless you are a terrible person who hates food, or who is ideologically opposed to veganism (see: terrible person) this book is for you. (And if you know someone like this, just don't tell them where the recipe came from and serve them something from the book! They will love it.) I am so excited to cook and eat my way through FAKE MEAT and cannot recommend it highly enough!

Lots of useful recipes

Okay let's get the small print/bad news out of the way. I'm a big Isa fan and have all of her cookbooks. With the exception of one, which I won't name here, I've loved all of them, so this book had brownie points before it even arrived. Take my review with a grain of salt if you must. Second --- There are definitely some fancy ingredients in here that you're unlikely to have on your shelves, because I don't, and I pride myself on keeping a pretty well-stocked kitchen. Things like a home smoker, Carrageenan (seriously?) two varieties of truffle oil and beet powder aren't in it though. (What can I say, I live in an apartment, and WAY outside the US, we can't have it all) Phew --- that out of the way, I wanted to wait until I tried a few recipes to write an honest review, so here: The Beefy Seitan -- Easy to make and does the job, although I don't find it especially beefy or unlike prior boiled seitans I've made... Pull Apart Seitan Chick'n --- Cheesecloth is a pain in the a*** and I can't say I particularly enjoyed the process of wrapping these up to steam, but the end result was damn good and different in texture to any seitan I've made before, so I'll probably put myself through the torture again. I'm just a glutten that way. Big Hugs CHick'n and Rice Soup --- The reason I made the above, and I'll do it again. This is hands down probably now my favorite comfort food EVER. I had a friend over and we may have gone through about 3 servings each in one evening. Rogan Josh --- Literally pulled this off the stove right now. I had all the ingredients on hands (I'd already made beefy seitan for something) and my kitchen smells like an Indian restaurant. The good kind --- where the cook is ACTUALLY Indian and making everything to order. I'm not a big red lentils fan but this may be changing my mind. Bangers and Mash -- I ate this every night for a full week. Buttered peas don't really require a recipe, let's be honest, but the cashew in the potatoes is killer, I'll be doing that from now on. I had to let the bangers steam about 15 minutes more then written so they weren't mushy, but that may be user error -- I probably wasn't supposed to make them so fat. They ARE in FACT, Bangin'. Miso in onions is also a huge winner. Fresh Mozz --- I've attempted a lot of vegan cheeses, and as a rule, they don't behave how the recipes say they will. No solidifying when they'll supposedly turn rock hard, and no melting when the author PROMISES it will. This though. This is DAMN good. I appreciated that it came together in one day --- no preparing things overnight or a couple days before. The balls ACTUALLY remained balls. The brine is KEY. I tasted one before brining and it had zero flavor, after brining---PERFECT. My pizza will never be the same. I will be making this again and again. In summary---- If you've got some vegan cooking experience under your belt, love creating new things, and have a reasonably stocked kitchen, you will LOVE this book. There are so many cool looking things I'm looking forward to trying. If you hate Vegan meats like another ---ahem ----reviewer, don't buy the book. It literally tells you what it is in the title, and you get what you pay for (something I've always thought was a positive)