AMERICAN CHOPSUEY

AMERICAN CHOP SUEY Recipe
Main Course Recipe by Tarla Dalal
30 Minutes
8 Persons
INGREDIENTS
450 grams cabbage 3 onions 100 grams bean sprouts 10 french beans 2 carrots 1 teacup boiled noodles 2 teacups fried noodles 1/2 teaspoon Ajinomoto powder 4 teaspoons refined oil 1 teaspoon chilli sauce Salt to taste For the Sauce: 1/4 teacup brown vinegar 1/2 teacup sugar 1 teacup water 2 tablespoons plain flour (maida) 1 tablespoon soya sauce 4 tablespoons tomato ketchup
METHOD
1. Slice the onions. Cut all the vegetables ( except bean sprouts) into long thin strips. 2. Place all the ingredients of the sauce in a vessel, mix well and put to boil. Go on cooking and stirring until the sauce is thick. 3. Heat the oil thoroughly in a vessel and add the vegetables and Ajinomoto powder. Cook on a high flame for 3 to 4 minutes. 4. Add the prepared sauce, boiled noodles, chilli sauce and salt and cook for a few minutes. 5. Add half of the fried noodles and mix well. 6. Serve hot, topped with the rest of the fried noodles

Chop suey
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For other uses, see Chop suey (disambiguation).
Chop suey

Traditional Chinese:
雜碎
Simplified Chinese:
杂碎
Hanyu Pinyin:
zá suì
Cantonese Jyutping:
zaap6 seoi3
Literal meaning:
mixed pieces
[show]Transliterations
Mandarin
- Hanyu Pinyin:
zá suì
Cantonese
- Jyutping:
zaap6 seoi3
- Yale Romanization:
jaāhp seui
Chop suey (Chinese zá suì, "mixed pieces") is an American-Chinese dish consisting of meats (often chicken, fish, beef, shrimp or pork), cooked quickly with vegetables such as bean sprouts, cabbage, and celery and bound in a starch-thickened sauce. It is typically served with rice but can become the Chinese-American form of chow mein with the addition of stir-fried noodles.
Chop suey is part of American Chinese cuisine, Canadian Chinese cuisine, and Indian Chinese cuisine.

Chop suey is widely believed to have been invented in America by Chinese immigrants, but in fact comes from Taishan, a district of Guangdong Province which was the home of most of the early Chinese immigrants; the Hong Kong doctor Li Shu-fan reported that he knew it in Taishan in the 1890s.[1]
Chop suey first appears in an American publication in 1898, described as "A Hash of Pork, with Celery, Onions, Bean Sprouts, etc."[2]
Despite its Taishan background, there are various colorful stories about its origin, which Davidson (1999) characterizes as "culinary mythology": Some say it was invented by Chinese immigrant cooks working on the United States Transcontinental railway in the 19th century. Another story is that it was invented during Qing Dynasty premier Li Hongzhang's visit to the United States in 1896 by his chef, who tried to create a dish suitable for both Chinese and American palates:[3] when reporters asked what food the premier was eating, his cook found it difficult to explain the dishes, and replied "mixed pieces";[4] But this is also untrue.[5]
In his book The Gangs of New York (1927), Herbert Asbury attributes the Americanized version of the term to a San Francisco dishwasher, calling it a bastardized version of the Cantonese phrase tsap sui, meaning "odds and ends", "miscellaneous pieces", or more simply "hash".
Outside of Taishan, the name "chop suey" or "shap sui in Cantonese,[3] and "za sui", when used in Mandarin, has the somewhat different meaning of cooked animal offal or entrails. For example, in the classic novel Journey to the West (circa 1590), Sun Wukong tells a lion-monster in chapter 75: "When I passed through Guangzhou (Canton), I bought a pot for cooking za sui - so I'll savour your liver, entrails, and lungs." This may be the same as the "Chop Suey Kiang" found in 1898 New York.[2]
During his exile in the United States, Liang Qichao, a Guangdong native, wrote in 1903 that there existed in the United States a food item called chop suey which was popularly served by Chinese restaurateurs, but which local Chinese people did not eat.[6] The term "za sui" (杂碎) is found in newer Chinese-English dictionaries with both meanings listed - cooked entrails, and chop suey in the Western sense.
This dual meaning has meant that some Chinese restaurants in English-speaking countries label mixed entrails as "chop suey" on their English menus.
One of the last remaining vertical chop suey neon signs in the world is located in Los Angeles, California, at the Far East Chop Suey restaurant in Little Tokyo.

Varieties
Chop suey may be prepared in a variety of styles, such as chicken, beef, pork, king prawn, plain and special. Plain, or vegetable chop suey, is often one of the few traditional Chinese American take-out dishes offered without meat at many restaurants.