This ramen recipe is from MasterChef champion Tim Anderson. Tim believes cooking Japanese food is a lot easier than people think and he’s written a book, Japaneasy, to prove it! Tim also talks about his time spent living in Japan, how he conquered MasterChef and why it's possible to make the best ever ramen in less than an hour...

Broccoli and friends: If you're using normal broccoli, break it into florets that are a little bigger than bite-size; if they're too big, they may still be raw and tough in the middle. Or, you can just use tenderstem or purple sprouting broccoli, which are the perfect size and shape as they are. Cauliflower works well, too, and I especially like romanesco. If you leave it undefined, Japaneasy will default to a "common word" search, which searches both Japanese and English keys and only queries the most common words in EDICT. This often shows the most pertinent words for a search.

Mushrooms: Medium-sized mushrooms, such as shiitake, chestnut (cremini) or oyster, can be cooked with basically no preparation. You will probably have to destem shiitake as they tend to be tough, but otherwise they're good to go. Enoki or shimeji are also lovely - they should be broken up into small clusters, still attached at the bottom. If you're using eringi, they should be cut into very thin slices, as they can often be tough even when fully cooked. Default value is 500 (milliseconds), which is long enough to not query multiple mirrors and short enough to not notice the delay if you switch over. If you're consistently seeing long load times, try changing the default mirror.

With ingredients like tangy miso, savoury shiitake mushrooms and zingy ponzu, to name a few, who needs meat? So if you’re new to veganism, new to Japanese cooking, new to both, or you just want to expand your meat-free repertoire, this is the book for you! Okra: Okra done as tempura is as addictive as chips. Cut them in half lengthways to maximise crunch. Courgettes (Zucchini): Unless you cut them very thinly and fry them for a very long time, they just have too much water in them - water that continues to seep out after frying, ultimately making the batter from soggy from within.Oil, for deep-frying (about 1.5l/50 fl oz/6. cups, but possibly a little more if you're using a very wide pan). Pour your oil into a big, deep pan - it should be very wide, to accommodate a lot of ingredients, but also deep so the oil doesn't overflow. The oil should be at least 7.5cm (3 in) deep, but it should also come up to no higher than 7.5cm (3 in) below the rim of the pan, to be safe. Set over a medium heat while you make the batter. Fold the sealed side over itself 3-5 times to form an attractive parcel (NOTE: gyoza need not be attractive to be delicious!). NOTE! If you're looking in a specialized dictionary or want to see the full results for a specific term, you should input either "japanese" or "english" here. Cavolo nero: Stripped away from their tough stalks, the leaves of cavolo nero make amazing tempura that are almost 100% crunch. You can use kale as well, but it's hard to drain off excess batter from their leaves, so they often come out cakey. Tomatoes: Maybe this one's obvious, but unless the tomatoes are really firm, they fall apart in the fryer.

Heat the oil to 170-180°C (340-350°F). If you don't have a thermometer, simply drip a few drops of the batter into the oil to test it: if the batter sinks, it's too cold; if the batter immediately floats and sizzles, it's too hot. What you want is for the batter to sink just below the surface of the oil, then rise up and start to sizzle. Good ramen is pretty simple to make at home, but really good ramen is almost impossibly difficult. Our ‘basic’ ramen at the restaurant is a complicated two-day process and the finished dish has eight different toppings, most of which are made in-house and involve quite a lot of labour. So even though ramen is my favourite food, I almost never used to make it at home. Select the default mirror to which japaneasy sends requests. The default value is "usa". Other values include: This is your character encoding. Default value is "UTF-8". You can also select "Shift-JIS", "EUC", "ISO-2022-JP", "ASCII", or "UCS".

Fennel: This may seem like an odd choice for tempura, given that fennel's aniseedy flavour isn't usually found in Japanese cuisine, but most of that aroma steams away during frying, so you're left with a sweet, toothsome vegetable with only a subtle scent. Slice them thinly (about 5mm/. in maximum) before frying. For assistance in interpreting the part of speech code, see http://www.edrdg.org/wwwjdic/wwwjdicinf.html#code_tag Believe it or not, Japanese cuisine, in general, is actually quite vegan-friendly, and many dishes can be made vegan with just a simple substitution or two. You can enjoy the same big, bold, salty-sweet-spicy-rich-umami recipes of modern Japanese soul food without so much as glancing down the meat and dairy aisles. And best of all, it’s super-easy to make! Oh, and by the way: in Japan it is against the law to enjoy gyoza without beer. That's how well they go together. Bell) Peppers: The best peppers for tempura are Padrons, or the similar (but very hard to find) Japanese shishito - just drop them in batter and fry, no need to prep. But ordinary sweet peppers work well, too, cut into chunks or rings.