Cooley hacks the cooking of Impossible chicken nuggets and they make him a believer

Speaker 1: I'll be honest, chicken nuggets. Make no sense to me. Ground up breaded bird meat shaped more often than not like a dinosaur, but at least the plant-based conversion of this strange sector is gonna put it more mainstream, at least in my mind and make it make sense. Let's try impossible chicken nuggets, which are just coming to grocery store. As we speak Speaker 1: [00:00:30] Let's face it. Chicken nuggets don't need to really be chicken nuggets. They're just breaded, tasty, greasy protein nuggets. Chicken just happened to be the easiest, most cost effective way for the food industry to it there. So to make these plant based just makes sense to me, if they're really good now I'm gonna cook these off label on the grill. You won't see this on the package. It's the usual conventional oven or microwave, but I want to try a little something different. And these days we like shooting outdoors and this is the peak of summer in California, September and October. So [00:01:00] I just feel like trying it. Let's see how it comes out to give them a better chance at coming out. Well, I'm gonna do three places on the grill. I'll do a couple of here on the foil for indirect heat. Um, couple up on the high rack for a little distance, and then I'll drop a couple of them here over the flavor bars of the grill. These may get sinned, a breaded product grill is basically stupid, but I'll try it. This distance may help and the foil should put us in good shape. So I'm gonna put three over there. Package instructions, call [00:01:30] 4, 3 75 for 11 minutes. Uh, I'm a little hot, but I'm gonna maybe pull the time down a little and hopefully it all works out Speaker 1: Now. To be honest, if chicken nuggets are child's food, they're not, child's play as a business sector. Something like $1.1 billion worth was sold in the us last year. And that was up 18% on the year before 19 to 20. It's a pretty big business for what it's a pretty small food. [00:02:00] I still can't imagine it being center of the plate for anybody, but a seven year old, but who cares? It's a big sector. Therefore you see a plant based company like impossible targeting it. As I look at these though, I wonder if maybe it shouldn't have been the first of the plant based foods, as opposed to the burgers that we know so much better. And I think that because they seem easier to me, you don't have to replicate blood or bleeding, which impossible is known for, but for whatever reason, these are coming a little later than burgers, but they might [00:02:30] be just as important to a lot of shoppers. Speaker 1: Now we're taping today. Very top of September of 21 and impossible chicken nuggets have been available in a few restaurants. Not many. In fact, not really one new near me in my corner of the San Francisco bay area. Both the bigger news is that they're now moving out to widespread food service. That means they can get to a lot more restaurants. And by end of 2021, they expect to have 10,000 grocery locations that are selling these. Okay. We're about [00:03:00] halfway through our cooking time. Let me see how these ones over here on the fair grill are doing. They're doing great. Why isn't this on the package? No charring at all. Love it. And then my ones over here on the foil are, I don't know, needlessly on the foil at this point. And the top grill, I think is gonna be a little cool, but it's is going great here. In fact, I think the ones that are on the grill bars are gonna do the best. I might even get grill marks. Speaker 1: Okay. While we're cooking on the flip side, let's take a look at some nutritional [00:03:30] numbers here compared to say, Tyson chicken nuggets and adjusting for equal portion size impossible's version is as you can imagine, better nutritionally its up for being a bit higher in sodium and a bit lower in protein. And of course, while prices will vary widely by store, there's still a big Delta between plant based and animal based meats and you know, which direction that Delta points and the main ingredient is looking at the top line here, water, soy, protein, concentrate, wheat flour, clearly not gluten free, sunflower oil, soybean [00:04:00] oil, and then a whole bunch of stuff. That's 2% or less. Those ingredients may seem very simple. But in my visits to impossibles labs, I've learned as I have from other companies in their sector, it's not just what you work with. It's how you actually shape and form and manipulate it. Speaker 1: Okay. So these have been in about the right amount of I'm at about the right temperature and they're all looking really good on the grill, the ones actually on the grill bars, they may be the ones that look the best. I've got a really nice golden brown [00:04:30] they're giving me a good sizzle. So I'm gonna put those over on one side here. The ones that came off the foil, they've got a nice even Golding as well. I don't see any difference to be honest, none of these were a failure compared to the oven and even the ones that were up on top. Yeah. Got a nice sizzle. Well cooked through this look identical, no matter where they came off the grill. So I think we've got a hit here, but we'll find out in a minute, let me kill the heat. The folks that impossible sent along some sauces to dip these in because let's face it. A chicken [00:05:00] nugget bind of itself in and of itself, isn't necessarily a flavor explosion. So here's one that came off the grill bar. What am I supposed to say? It tastes like a chicken nugget. I haven't had one in a thousand years, but it tastes good. Everything about it is exactly what I expect it to be and not surprising or different or divergent from the category. And [00:05:30] that's exactly what you're trying to do with a plant-based product. So much of it is about being an accurate analog, not blazing new ground in terms of flavor. I'll get a little bit of sauce on this one. Now Speaker 1: It's a great base for dipping Great base for bees to be attracted too. Speaker 1: What's the sauce they like. Okay. Let me move these sauces over here. Come on guys. B break. Sorry. Okay. Let me try one off of the [00:06:00] foil side. This one had the most Browning on it. There's no difference. What I'm noticing here is there is a true chicken flavor, not just a salted seasoned protein flavor. That's a pretty good trick. And the other part is the breading is crunching and didn't come out kind of Doy. These are all small cues, but they're all part of what makes something like this. Good. Oh look, [00:06:30] one of my grill marks actually showed up here. I'm proud of that without burning a look, a chicken, Nugget's a pretty humble piece of food. The bigger goals ahead will be things like whole cuts of chicken from an industry that is trying to replace animal agriculture. But this is a great start that will get a lot of people tuned in now to be available and onboard for whatever comes next. Good work. The.