Many people tend to hold the belief that cooking for vegans or vegetarians severely limits the number of recipes that you can cook. Many people tend to hold the belief that cooking for vegans or vegetarians severely limits the number of recipes that you can cook.

In truth, all you have to do is find the right substitutes.

Take this cassoulet recipe for example. This one was happily shared by Kosher River Cruise, a Jewish cruise liner company that prides itself on their kosher cuisine and river tours. To cater to any non-meat eating guests that they may have on board, they made a few changes to the recipe.

Crusted Vegetarian Cassoulet

For those unfamiliar with French cuisine, cassoulet is a rustic and rich casserole, slow cooked to stewy perfection. It contains white beans and meat—it can range from pork, mutton, goose, or duck. Kosher River Cruise, being Jewish, doesn’t use pork. Actually, they completely replaced the meat with vegetarian sausages.

Now, onto the recipe!

Stew Ingredients:

125gr dried haricot beans, soaked overnight

1.2 litres water

15gr dried ceps

150ml boiling water

6 tbsps extra virgin olive oil

2 garlic cloves, chopped

250gr baby onions, halved

175gr mixed mushrooms, sliced

1 tbsp each chopped fresh thyme, rosemary and sage

2 carrots, diced

2 celery sticks, sliced

1 red pepper, deseeded and diced

150ml red wine

4 tbsps tomato puree

1 tbsp dark soy sauce

Salt and pepper

Crust Ingredients:

½ small French stick, sliced thinly

2 tbsps extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic clove, crushed

2 tbsps chopped fresh thyme

25gr Parmesan cheese, grated

Instructions:

Drain the beans and place in a saucepan with the boiling water. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly for about 10 minutes. Lower the heat, cover and simmer gently for 45 mins. Drain the beans and reserve 300ml of the cooking liquid. Soak the dried ceps in the boiling water for 20 minutes, then drain, reserving the liquid. Slice the ceps. Heat half the oil in a frying pan and fry the garlic and onions for 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and herbs, and stir-fry for a further 5 minutes until the mushrooms are golden. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside. Heat the remaining oil in the frying pan and fry the carrots, celery and pepper for 5 mins, then add the wine and boil rapidly for 3 minutes. Stir in the beans and their liquid, the mushroom mixture, ceps and their liquid, tomato puree and soy sauce, season to taste. Spoon into 4 small dishes or 1 large gratin dish. Layer the sliced bread over the casserole. Mix together the oil, garlic and thyme, brush over the bread and scatter with the Parmesan cheese. Cover loosely with foil and place in a preheated oven, 190C/375F/mark5, for 30mins. Remove the foil and bake for a further 20 minutes until the crust is golden.

Serve and enjoy!

If you’re interested in more vegan/vegetarian dishes, or maybe you just want to try some kosher, Kosher River Cruise has more on their website. They really like to share their recipes.