Authentic Traditional Flemish Stew... but Plant-Based!
Those wonderfully old-fashioned, quintessentially Belgian ingredients that your grandmother and the generations before her cherished are all there: brown beer, a hearty bouquet garni of thyme, bay leaves, parsley, cloves, and juniper berries – and, of course, the classic slice of brown bread slathered in good Belgian mustard slowly melting on top #ifyouknowyouknow.
And then – of course – there’s also an array of those typical ingenious, tasty Solid Stash-twists, which not only make this vegan Belgian classic stew a slow-cooked flavour sensation, but that are also GOOD for both you and for the planet:
1. Vegan? Absolutely. Sacrifice on taste? Never.
… So for optimum flavour, our recipe also features these star ingredients:
- Belgian gingerbread
- A special yeast extract with an astonishingly rich and meaty effect (a little trick we picked up during our ten years in the London food scene)
- Callebaut dark chocolate
- Authentic sirop de Liège
And of course, in true grandma fashion: a nice long night of resting in the fridge to let all those flavours mingle and mature. Flavour cannot be rushed, child!
2. Plant-based stew? Hell yes! Hyper-processed fake meats? No thanks!
It's super important to us to always use the most natural ingredients we possibly can in our dishes. For us, a meat or fish substitute isn’t a must for a balanced meal!
... But in a traditional dish like Flemish Stew, it’s kind of impossible not to replace the meaty element.
After a long search for a natural, plant-based meat alternative that’s both packed with flavour and has the right mouthfeel, we finally found the perfect combo of two VIPs in the world of sustainable comfort food:
- Young jackfruit: perfect for that slow-cooked, “pulled” meat effect
- Soya chunks: a wonderfully versatile product with just one ingredient (soy flour!) that - after lots of our tender love and care - accidentally comes very close to "the real deal".
So, no artificial “meat” here, just pure, natural ingredients! Beautifully marinated and then slowly caramelised in the oven, before happily simmering away in the sauce with the other ingredients.
Frozen comfort food at its finest. Grandma would be proud! 💖