Vegan Ramen With a Global Warming Polar Bear

Finding ramen without meat isn’t really an easy search. But it’s always easy to wonder if you can improvise the taste of ramen using plant-based items.

I make a lot of vegan and vegetarian recipes here on Yukitchen, but making the world vegan is not my mission here. That would be supremacy, and no supremacy in history ever inspired us to think on our own. Instead, I can create a recipe, that would take my imagination to travel all the way to the North Pole. Climate change has become a global problem. And I think I want my recipes to be a reminder for you to wonder if you can ever improvise the taste of ramen using plant-based items. Choosing vegan could possibly prevent global warming from happening, and I just want to talk about it with you.

My Vegan Ramen 2 principals:

1. No meat
2. No oil

And if you ask me why, I would probably ask you how much time you have for me today. If you just want a quick answer, I would simply reply that I like to eat good food, that does good things to my body and mind. But if you want more than a quick answer, and dissect the depth of my everyday thoughts and actions, I’m afraid I need more than a couple of hours to describe it. But here comes the problems; no one has that much time for me anymore. Perhaps that’s why I make recipes like Polar Bear Vegan Ramen; because it’s delicious, it’s healthy, and not everything we do is a quick answer over the richness of possibility.

Ramen broth main ingredients:
Miso, honey, soy milk, black pepper.

Polar bear main ingredients:
Daikon radish, seaweed.

Now let’s get the party started!

1: Grate a daikon radish for the polar bear.
This is going to be the body of your polar bear. After grating the whole daikon radish, wrap it and rest it in a fridge until later. 2: Chop the veggies.
Chop carrot, onion, mushrooms, and garlic cloves! Garlic is a must for ramen broth, so don’t forget them.
3: Put the veggies and water in a pod.
In a large pot, add 3.5 cups of water and all veggies except for mushrooms. Bring the mixture to a boil and reduce the heat to medium-low.
4: The secret seasoning. 
Get ready with your secret vegan ramen ingredients! Honey, mirin, soy sauce, soy milk, salt, pepper, and miso; this sounds wack, but once all combined, and smell the aroma of awesomeness, you will eventually stop doubting.

Once you add all the seasoning ingredients, simmer the broth for 10~15 minutes.
Mixing miso, honey, soy milk and pepper…?! I cook a lot of crazy things, but this one probably takes the cake. I tried a bunch of different seasonings, but this one actually mimics you into thinking you are eating the Tonkotsu Ramen. ↓

Tonkotsu (豚骨, “pork bone”) ramen usually has a cloudy white colored broth, made from boiling pork bones, fat, and collagen over high heat for many hours, which suffuses the broth with a hearty pork flavor and a creamy consistency that rivals milk, melted butter or gravy.

Tonkotsu Ramen used to be my favorite ramen, so I was over the moon to discover the vegan version of it. (There are many kinds of ramen in Japan. If you are interested, please read Wikipedia to learn more.)

Do not forget to use a lot of pepper. Don’t be too shy. You might think 1.5 tbsp of black pepper is too much, but it’s kind of essential to use this much to create the Tonkotsu Ramen flavor. 6: Boil the noodle.
While the broth is simmering, start boiling water in a large pod for the noodle. After bringing it to boil, add the noodle and cook 4 to 5 minutes, or until the noodle color turns golden-brown.
7: Keep the cooked noodle in the cold water.
After boiling the noodle, strain all the hot water and keep the noodle in cold water. This would help prevent the noodles from sticking together. 8: Add the mushrooms.
Add the mushrooms and you’re all done for making the ramen broth. Cover the pot with a lid and cook for another 5 minutes or so. 9: Making a Polar bear.
It’s time to get your creative side on! Cut the baking paper into a little square and start building the bear. You could directly do it on an actual ramen bowl, but I wanted to make sure everything is in control just in case something tragic happens, like dismembering the bear by accident. For the facial part, cut the dried seaweed into thin strings and stick them on the bear face.

10: Make a Polar Bear’s chair (so he can sit still). 
Pick up a chunk of carrot from the broth pod and place it in the middle of the bowl like this. Then wrap it around with the noodles.
11: Decorate the ramen bowl, without his arms. 
When you grab a bear, it’s extremely hard to pick up his entire body from the sheet. But don’t worry, his body is made of radish! That means you can totally separate the arms from the body and stick them together easily after you place the body on a carrot chair.
You can decorate the ramen with the veggies, wherever you feel like. I liked adding the scallions behind Mr. Polar Bear, so he can lean on them.
12: Attach the arms!!!
It’s still cute without the arms, but it gets even cuter with the arms as if he was resting himself on the noodle. Oh, I love this so much. It looks like he is taking a bath. A ramen bath.
13: Pour some more broth and you’re done!
This is the cutest thing ever. You could add more broth than this if you want.  I was a bit afraid that my Polar Bear might start melting so I didn’t put too much.
Should I name this food “Ramen Bath with a Polar Bear”? *giggles*
This broth is made of all sort of Asian ingredients, yet somehow tastes like Tonkotsu “pork”. Eating this ramen, of course, is the most heart-breaking ordeal. But I somehow enjoyed my bear changing his shapes and postures depending on how I picked up the noodles. When I saw this view, global warming was on my mind.

Thank you so much for reading this. I know you came here for the cute things, but ended up feeling kind of heavy. I’m sorry for that, I truly am. But if I can’t deliver messages over my art, if all of the things I do here is to make “cute things”, then I’d rather die in my vegan ramen just like the Polar Bear I made.

So I say not yet. I’m not done yet. And I just gushingly hope you are with me on this.

Thanks for reading.
-Yuki

Reference: “Oryoritengoku“