United Airlines releases recipe book for fans of inflight meals

And some of the dishes are taken from economy class

United Airlines has launched a recipe book (United Airlines)

Despite the bad rap that plane food gets, one airline is banking on the fact that some people actually enjoy an inflight meal.

United Airlines has released a recipe book of 40 dishes from its executive chefs, some of which are taken from its Polaris business class menu – and some of which come from plain old economy.

Sample dishes include “coconut soup with sambal oelek chicken”, which actually looks good in the accompanying picture.

A proportion of the book’s profits are going to The Trotter Project, an organisation that runs culinary and education programmes for students in the US.

United follows in the footsteps of Southwest, which launched its own cookbook in 2006 entitled Feel the Spirit, Savor the Fare, which was “by and for Southwest Airlines employees“ and offered “more than 737 recipes, quotes and more”.

Social media users were quick to mock the idea of an airline cookbook. “I don’t know about you, I’ve never thought... ‘I really loved that meal I had on the flight, I want to cook that at home’,” wrote Jono Haysom on Twitter.

“I always wanted to know how to make that chicken and rice dog food that United serves,” tweeted Richard Bocchinfuso (with an accompanying vomit emoji unless anyone was in any doubt of his true feelings).

The news comes after model Chrissy Teigen revealed her dream job would be curating an inflight menu.

The social media star, who has released two recipe books, tweeted a picture of the menu from a recent flight, saying she was less than impressed by one of the dishes on offer.

“I will never ever take flying first class for granted but this is atrocious,” she wrote, sharing the description of “Avocado toast – sourdough, shrimp, tomato, capers”.

She commented, “plane shrimp are bad. plane shrimp on avocado toast with capers??? dear god”, adding, “this seems like a good time for me to share my dream of curating an airline menu”.

Social media did its work, and within 24 hours Southwest Airlines had replied: “We’re always open to suggestions for our already famous packaged pretzel recipes. If there’s a way to improve on our Airplane Cookies, we’re all ears. Surely we can work together to come up with something amazing, right?”

Meanwhile, Delta retweeted Teigen’s original post, saying: “Would love to show you around our kitchen. Let’s chat.”