Recipe: Spicy Korean ramen (vegan)

I absolutely LOVE ramen. It's one of my favorite dishes in Japan, and fortunately more and more vegan ramen places are popping up in the country. While ramen has its roots in China, because of the use of Chinese noodles, the Japanese have turned it into their own traditional dish. Originally the base of the dish consists of Chinese wheat noodles often in a meat or fish broth, but many variations exist throughout the country such as the famous Hakata ramen from Fukuoka, a milky ramen soup made from pork bones. Other popular, and vegetarian, variations of ramen are Shoyu (soy sauce), Shio (salt) and Miso ramen. As toppings, many ingredients can be used. Often used vegetarian toppings are green onions, boiled eggs, bean sprouts, fermented bamboo shoots, nori (dried seaweed), corn, shiitake and wakame.

Since I was craving spicy food while walking around in our local Asian supermarket, I decided to make my own spicy ramen noodles. I already made miso ramen a couple of weeks ago and while I love it, miso and japanese spicy don't go too well together in my opinion. So I had to think of something new. One thing I'm hooked on is the Korean Gochujang (red chili paste) which is great for bibimbap or spicy Korean rice cakes for example. Since I don't use it too often, one box of paste can last in my fridge for over 6 months, so why not create some more dishes with it!? It probably tastes great as a ramen broth too, right? So I got my veggies and wheat noodles and went home to cook some delicious ramen. I can tell you, it took me by surprise how amazingly tasty (and spicy!) it was :).

1. Cut the tofu into cubes and add the hoisin sauce, soy sauce, a bit of garlic (powder) and oil to it. Stir and let it sit for a while

2. Cut onion and garlic into tiny pieces and fried the onions for a couple of minutes before I added the garlic.

3. Add half a can of diced tomatoes and let it simmer for about a minute.

4. Add the dried shiitake mushrooms and the vegetable stock (don't add too much water since you don't need a huge amount of soup)

5. Combine the gochujang with the soysauce and hoisin (and some broth to make it easier to mix) and add to the broth. Add more soy sauce and/or salt if needed. And more gochujang if you want it more spicy! :)

6. Let it simmer for a while, while you cut the toppings and fry the tofu.

7. Now add the noodles to the broth and cook until done (follow the instructions on the package).

8. Put the noodles into a both, cover it with some broth and top with all your amazing toppings! For garnishing you can use some sesame seeds.

Enjoy! :)

Ready In: 30 min.

Ingredients:

4 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons gochujang
2 tablespoons soy sauce for broth
1 tablespoon hoisin for broth
1 onion for broth
3 cloves of garlic for broth
150-200 grams of ramen noodles
100 grams of tofu
1 tablespoon soy sauce for tofu
1 tablespoon hoising for tofu
1 tablespoon vegetable oil for tofu
green onions
corn
enoki mushrooms
8 dried shiitake mushrooms, cut in half
bean sprouts
or any other topping of choice!

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Recipe: Vegan chicken teriyaki

You probably know one of the most famous Japanese dishes; chicken teriyaki. It is a bit of a sweet and salty dish that goes great with rice. I have never been able to try it, since I never thought to make it myself, until my Japanese friend came over last week. Turns out, it is super easy! Now, we did not make the traditional Japanese chicken teriyaki, but we made a variation on it - with orange. This gives it a nice citrus twist, and a bit more fresh.

Mind that this recipe is with vegan chicken pieces, but if you cannot find those, you can replace them with tofu, tempé or even veggies (like green beans) for example.

1. Combine the four tablspoons (almost half a jar) of marmalade, sake, soy sauce and mirin and stir well.

2. Cut the onion in semi thick, half slices and fry them in some oil. Then cut the garlic into small pieces and add to the pan as well.

3. After about 2 minutes, add the chicken pieces and fry them untill they become a little bit golden on the outside. Now it is time to add the veggies if you decide to use them.

4. Add the teriyaki sauce and stir it in. Now let it simmer and wait until the sauce thickens. If you like thinner sauce, add another tablespoon of everything, if you want thicker sauce, you can add some cornflour.

5. Now add the sesame seeds and some spring onion for seasoning and serve with steamed rice - voila! :)

Please let me know if you enjoyed it!

Ready In: 30 min.

Ingredients:

160-200 gr. vegan chicken pieces
200 gr. green beans (opt.)
1 tbsp sesame oil (or other vegetable oil)
2 cloves of garlic
1 onion
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp cooking sake
steamed rice for two people
4 tbsp orange marmalade (check whether without gelatine)
sesame seeds (opt.)
spring onion (opt.)

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Recipe: Easy Vegan Yellow Curry

Yellow Curry is truely amazing, it contains a burst of flavour and warms you up in the cold days. This recipe is one of my favourites, it's not very difficult to make and still looks AWESOME also if you have friends over, so try it out! :)

1. Cut the vegetables

2. Put the rice to boil

3. Add the oil to a large pan, and when hot add the onion. Fry until translucent, add the garlic for about one minute.

3. Add the pumpkin, bell pepper and chilli pepper, followed by the coconut milk, vegetable broth and curry paste.

4. Let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes, or until pumpkin is tender.

5. Taste and add salt/pepper/soysauce (only a little bit!) if necessary

6. Add the lemon juice and simmer for another 2-3 minutes (you can also already add the cashews if you like them to be a bit softer, which is also delicious!)

7. Serve with the rice and put some spring onion and cashews on top for serving.

8. ENJOY! :)

P.S. If you want to make your own yellow curry paste, check out this recipe for example: https://pinchofyum.com/easy-homemade-yellow-curry-paste

Ready In: 40 min.

Ingredients:

600 gr. pumkin in edible pieces
1 lengthwice sliced red bell pepper
1 chopped onion
4 cloves of finely chopped garlic
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 chopped red pepper
400 ml coconut milk
250 ml vegetable stock (less or more for thicker/thinner curry)
1 lime
2-3 tbsp yellow vegan curry paste
Cashew nuts as many as you want
Optional: spring onion for garnishing
Rice for serving (75-100 gram pp)

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Recipe: Delicious vegan ramen recipe

It's RAMEN TIME! :D

This is a Japanese ramen recipe that is delicious and suitable for everyone, also vegans. It is easy to make and you can create a different dish every time if you change the toppings. This recipe will give you the ramen stock, and some toppings I really like. In case you make the stock with mushrooms, add 1 hour to your cooking time. However, it's also delicious without the mushrooms!

1. cut the tempe/tofu and put it in a bowl with a bit of soy sauce and garlic.

2. cut the garlic and ginger into small pieces and heat it in sesame or sunflower oil for about five minutes on low heating.

3. now add the stock, soy sauce, mirin and if you use them, the dried shiitake or different type of mushrooms. Let it cook for about 5-10 minutes (the longer the tastier though), but in case you added dried mushrooms, let it boil for one hour before you continue with step 4.

4. prepare the toppings (cut them into smaller pieces if necessary).

- heat some oil in a separate pan and bake the tempe/tofu.

- boil some water in a separate pot, add the spinach for about two minutes, then drain the spinach with cold water.

5. add the noodles and cook as long as necessary, then turn down the heat, add the miso paste and stirr well (don't boil when the miso paste is in).

6. divide the stock and noodles over two bowls and add the toppings. I only use a little bit of pickled ginger in the middle because it looks very pretty but has a strong flavour. And you can sprinkle with sesame seeds.

7. Enjoy

Ready In: 45 min.

Ingredients:

sesame oil (or sunflower will do too)
4 cloves of garlic
1 inch ginger
Vegetable stock (i used two blocks), so about 1L
Two tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon miso paste (usually white, but I used red and it was tasty anyway :))
1 tablespoon mirin
about 150 gram ramen (depending on how hungrgy you are)
Optional: dehydrated mushrooms (shiitake)
Toppings such as:
tempe/tofu marinated and baked in a bit of soy sauce
1 spring onion
1 can of corn (200gram)
spinach (150-200 gram)
mushrooms
pickled ginger
sesame seeds

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Vegetarian in Japan: A guide to vegetarian (or vegan) travelling in Japan

Being a vegetarian in Japan is quite a challenge, let alone being vegan. However, it is far from impossible! Just like in many other places throughout the world, vegetarian food is becoming increasingly popular. While I was living in Kyoto in 2016/2017 I found quite some awesome vegetarian an vegan restaurants (want to know more, check out this blog). Similarly when I went to Tokyo in 2018, I found some great places as well. While it is still a bit difficult to figure out what you can and what you can't eat (especially if you're a strict vegetarian/vegan), there are some ways to make this life a little bit easier.

Learn the Language
First of all, it definitely helps if you know Japanese, of have a friend who can come along and translate. While it seems obvious, this is one of the biggest problems. Generally, Japanese people don't have a full understanding of what vegetarian or vegan is. So even if you say "watashi wa bejitarian desu" (I'm a vegetarian), it doesn't guarantee you'll get vegetarian food. An easier way to make clear that you're avoiding meat and fish is to say: "watashi wa niku to sakana wo tabemasen", meaning I don't eat meat or fish. Of course you can say this for other things as well, just mention the thing you don't eat followed by wo tabemasen (meaning don't eat) and it will help a lot.

But even if you say "watashi wa niku to sakana wo tabemasen", you still have to be careful of katsuo-dashi, this is fish stock and often not regarded as 'meat' or 'fish', therefore your meal might still contain this. The same is true for bonito flakes (fish flakes), cold katsuoboshi in Japanese. If you want to make sure this is not in your food either, you can for example say: niku to sakana wo tabemasen. followed by: "katsuo-dashi to katsuoboshi mo tabemasen".

For vegans it's a little bit more difficult. Of course you can metion all the things you don't eat, such as:

- egg: tamago
- cheese: chiizu
- milk: gyuunyuu

Get a dietary card
but be prepared to get some startled looks. There's an easier way as well. When I stayed at a hostel in Tokyo, they had these super useful dietary cards which said in Japanese what you could and couldn't eat. In this way you can just show the staff of a restaurant the card and then they can help you choose a dish. the website justhungry.com offers some options for cards for several dietary restrictions. Simply download them and show them on your phone. While these cards are useful, I prefer the cards on which you can circle your restrictions, such as the one provided by LiveJapan. They also show some common ingredients you should be aware of and ways to say you're allergic for example.

Get the google translate app
When you're buying food in a store it can also be rather challenging to find vegetarian/vegan options. While you can sometimes ask the clerk, or another shopper, this is not always an option. Google translate can come in real handy in this case. Since many places have WiFi nowadays, especially convenience stores (although it can be a bit of a hassle to acces it), you can easily use the app. By simply scanning an ingredient list with the app, it will give you an immediate translation of the japanese ingredients.

If you're not able to use internet or WiFi, you can also learn the kanji for the words important to you, or list them on your phone so you can check more easily. SurvivingnJapan also provides a great guide to reading food labels and the ingredients.

Be aware of ingredients/dishes
You don't have to eat at vegetarian or vegan restaurants all the time, there are still plenty of options at other places. However, there are some things to be aware of.

Sushi
When you go out to eat sushi, the obvious thing is to avoid fish sushi. However, other sushi options are less obvious such as sushi with fish eggs, sperm, or ground fish, but also the sushi wrapped in tofu pockets, they are almost always boiled in fish stock. Sushi you can eat/ask for are sushi with egg (tamago), cucumber (kappa maki), pickled daikon (oshinko maki), mushroom nigiri, okrah nigiri, eggplant nigiri, avocado onigiri, natto (fermented soy beans) maki, and some other options. So there's still plenty to eat.

Ramen
Unless ramen is labeled as vegetarian or vegan, it will highly likely contain meat or fish broth. However, more and more vegan and vegetarian ramen places are popping up, so don't fuzz, since you'll find some great places to eat. A very popular vegetarian/vegan ramen place is T's TanTan in Tokyo, as well as Sorainoro where they have one delicious vegan option. In Kyoto you can eat vegetarian (not sure if it's vegan) ramen at Mumokuteki in the city center and Mamezen and Vegans Cafe a bit further away.

Kushikatsu & Tempura
Kushikatsu in a great dish which you can find a lot in Osaka for example. Tempura is super delicious as well. While it is often vegan if you choose the vegetable options, the tempura batter can sometimes contain eggs, so be sure to check. The dipping sauce also usually contains fish, since it's often a mix of dashi and soy sauce. Sometimes you can ask for simple soy sauce (however, they don't always have it), or you can dip it in salt.

Udon & Soba
Udon and Soba noodles can either be served in broth, or in a basket with many sides. I would avoid broths since they are always meat or fish based (unless indicated otherwise of course). If you order the ones that are not served in the broth, make sure you order it withous bonito flakes. Also the dipping sauce if other a mix of soy and fish stock and sometimes additional things. However, the noodles come with several sides such as sea weed, spring onion, pickles and can therefore still be greatly enjoyed!

Convenience stores
While many things in the convenience store are not vegetarian/vegan, other things are. To start with: the onigiris. In the konbini you can find ume (pickled plum), seaweed, plain, red bean and corn-mayo onigiri which are all vegan, excepts for the last one. Furthermore you can find two types of vegan/vegetarian sushi. The vegan one is natto (which is quite a thing to get used to), the second one is a big roll with egg, vegetables and some pink grainy stuff that almost looks like fish eggs, this is vegetarian! Other things are things like Dango (rice balls), tsukemono (pickled vegetables), pre-made salads (they are in see through boxes so you can see what's inside), happy dates bars, nuts, edamame (soy beans), and more. If you want to know about more vegan dishes check out this great vlog by Currently Hannah.

Last but not least... Prepare!
Preparing is a big part of finding the best vegetarian and vegan places to eat. You can find information through the large amount of blogs and vlogs on the internet, which can help you greatly, and you can ask locals or hotel staff. The website happycow.net is also a good source of inspiration. This website lists all kinds of places with vegetarian and vegan food. Other than that, if you're having a hard time finding a vegetarian place wherever you are in Japan, a good alternative is to find an Indian restaurant. Indian restaurants are really popular and always have vegetarian and vegan options. They are very aware of what it means to be vegetarian or vegan so you're safe there.

Good luck! :)