Chinese Food - Chopsuey

Chopsuey

Getting to know Chinese cooking abroad.  I have been learning how to cook Chinese dish for a long time.  However, I have not mastered it yet.  I will follow the book of Kenneth Lo, it is very informative, I have learnt a lot from it, and I must continue to learn more. I have posted the topic of Chinese Food; the different about eating Chinese style with the Western.  And also the two types of Chinese meals: the banquet and the regular main meals.

Today is all about the most popular dish of all: Chopsuey

Everything suffers a sea change when removed from its native shores.  Chinese food and cooking are naturally no exception.  Some changes are for the better, but, in the case of Chinese food abroad, the changes seem either to be for the worse or to involve a loss of authenticity. (Kenneth Lo)

Getting to know Chinese Dishes: Chopsuey etc.

Chopsuey is one of the most renowned of the anchor dishes, with all its variations.   According to Kenneth Lo, the most extensive selection he has seen on a single menu is twenty-one, which is probably twenty too many.  Since, basically, they are really all the same thing.

Chopsuey consists mainly of bean sprouts and other shredded or another and sometimes flavoured with a few prawns and shrimps, with lots of gravy at the bottom of the dish and capped with a thin omelette.  What can be more savoury and mouthwatering if you are really hungry?

The distinctive character of chop suey comes from the fresh and crunchy bean sprouts combining with the savoury meat and gravy. 

Tomato is a common ingredient, and tomato sauce is added along with soya sauce and the other regular constituents of the sauce when the shredded meat is being fried.  The resultant gravy, in which the bean sprouts are tossed and turned, has a familiar taste to the western palate (that of ketchup), but it has Chinese overtones.

Chopsuey has two characteristics of Chinese cooking: Savouriness and Crunchiness, with two simple ingredients of the West: Tomato and Egg.  Probably it is the blend of the exotic with the familiar that accounts of its popularity.
On the other hand, chop suey is the antithesis of real Chinese culinary art, which requires that flavours are kept distinct, and not jumbled, however savoury the result; and chop suey is really no more than a spicy, savoury mess!

Chopsuey and the Omelette

How to serve the Chopsuey

Recipe

Chopsuey (adaptation from Kenneth Lo)

Serves for 6 people with other 4 dishes

Ingredients

1 egg
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
120 g meat – pork, chicken, sliced into strips
2tablespoons soya sauce
1 teaspoons salt
1 ½ teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons dry sherry
1tablespoon tomato pure
4 tablespoons chicken broth, a dash of pepper
2 tablespoon lards
4 spring onions (cut in 5cm segments)
1 clove of garlic (crushed)
1 slice root ginger (finely chopped)
300 g bean sprouts
½ chicken stock cube

Method:
The omelette
Beat the egg, and make a thin omelette in a small omelette pan, and put aside
In a wok or saucepan, fry the meat in oil for two minutes over high heat
Add in sugar, tomato puree, soy sauce and the sherry,
Continue to stir- fry for a ½ minute; add in the chicken broth and pepper
Heat until the mixture boils, stir gently for a ½ minute and withdraw from fire.
Heat oil in a saucepan, when it is hot add in the spring onion and garlic and ginger
Add in the bean sprout and the meat/gravy mixture.  Turn and toss and stir for a few seconds.
Pour the contents to a serving bowl, and serve, capping the dish with the omelette.
(I don’t know the Chinese people eat this dish, especially the egg-omelette. They use a chopstick)

Ingredients of Chopsuey

Step by Step How to Do

Cooked omelette, keep aside.

Saute the meat, add in the sugar, soy, tomato and the sherry

Saute the garlic and ginger

Add in the spring onion to the ginger and garlic

Add beans sprout, meat, and spring onion

Turn and Toss and Cook Together

Chopsuey in the serving bowl and the Omelette

The final step:  To serve the Chopsuey

I do a different presentation, in my home, I cut the omelette into strips then I put them on top the chop suey.   Obviously, it is not the traditional one.
My family enjoyed the chop suey immensely, it has great textures and also very flavoursome!
I did not cook the other four dishes as the traditional Chinese family do.

Chopsuey with Shredded Omelette on Top

Worth to Try the Recipe-the traditional Chopsuey.

Happy Cooking

Susy