American Chop Suey?

[Zhizara]

Mom made goulash, no cheese unless we had parmesan (yes, green can), school had Johnny Marzetti, it was the addition of cheddar cheese that captured my interest. There are several other dishes at school that I was enamored of.

I like it too, I like chop suey as well. I just wish there were recipes for real chop suey.

I make my own version of chop suey, but it's a recipe that isn't satisfactory yet. It's pretty good, but I'd love to get some inspiration, like maybe broccoli?

I never heard of what people call American Chop Suey or Johnny Marzetti. I'm glad to learn from my DC friends!

 

[Andy M.]

I like it too, I like chop suey as well. I just wish there were recipes for real chop suey...

Ask and you shall receive. This recipe tastes like what you get in a Chinese restaurant.

Vegetable Chop Suey

For the Sauce:
2 Tb Oyster Sauce
1 Tb Soy Sauce
½Tb Dry Sherry
½ tsp Sugar
2 tsp Cornstarch
¼ C Chicken or Vegetable Stock

For the Dish:
¼ C Peanut Oil, divided
2 cl Garlic
1 Ea Onion, chopped
1 Ea Green Bell Pepper, chopped
8 Oz Mushrooms, sliced
5 Oz Water Chestnuts, canned
2 Oz Snow Pea Pods
1 Ea Carrot, sliced
7 Oz Broccoli Florets
4 Oz Bean Sprouts

Combine the sauce ingredients and set aside.

Stir-fry the vegetables (except for the sprouts) in small batches. If you do one type of vegetable at a time, they will be more evenly cooked than if you stir fry batches of mixed vegetables.

When all the vegetables are stir fried, add them all back into the wok and make a well in the bottom of the wok.

Add the sauce and stir over high heat until it boils.

Add the sprouts, toss and serve.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

The sauce also sounds good for Egg Foo Yung...

 

[Zhizara]

OH! Thanks, Andy!

Copied, pasted and printed! YAY!

 

[Steve Kroll]

Steve, does chili mac have chili powder in it?

Not in this neck of the woods. My mother-in-law makes it with Italian seasoning. I'm not sure how that even remotely qualifies as "chili", but I suppose it's not all that different than giving it a Hungarian, Chinese, or Italian sounding name.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Another version of Chop Suey/Chow Mein, like the ones in the two restaurants that I mentioned:

Chop Suey/Chow Mein


Ingredients list:
2 lbs. Chicken Breast, bone on
2 large, sweet onions
4 cups bean sprouts
4 stalks celery, bias sliced into 1 inch chunks
1 cup chicken broth
Cornstarch
Soy sauce
1/8 tsp. Powdered ginger
8 oz. mushrooms, washed and sliced
Chow Mein Noodles
½ cup velvet marinade
Cooking oil

Velvet marinade:
¼ cup water
1 tsp. corn starch
1 tsp. soy sauce
1 tbs. wine vinegar
Combine all ingredients and stir until smooth.

Remove the meat from the bone. Fry the bones in a little cooking oil until browned. Place them in a pot with 1 cup of water. Cover and bring to a boil.

Slice the meat into thin strips. Place the meat into the velvet marinade and let sit for fifteen minutes. While the meat is marinating, peel and slice the onion from top to bottom, into strips.

Heat 1 inch of oil in a skillet to a temperature of 340’ F. Place the meat strips into the oil and poach them until the coating turns white. Immediately remove the meat to a bowl and set aside.

Heat 1 tbs. cooking oil in a large skillet, or wok. Add the mushrooms, bias-sliced celery, and onions, and stir-fry until they just start to turn tender. Remove the bones from the chicken broth, and pour over the veggies. Add the bean sprouts and cook for one minute.

Mix 1 tsp. of cornstarch with 2 tbs. water to make a slurry. Add to the chicken broth. Pour the sauce into the wok with the veggies. Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Add the velveted chicken and serve with Chow Mein noodles.

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Zhizara]

Thanks, Chief! Copied, pasted and printed.

Another one to play with. Oh, boy!

 

[powerplantop]

My version.

Chicken Chop Suey Recipe / World of Flavor - YouTube

 

[Zhizara]

Thanks, PPO. I like the bok choy. It's definitely on my grocery list now. It's good stuff, and an ingredient I hadn't thought of.

 

[Addie]

How many of you guys make this dish? Am I the only budding cafeteria lady here?

Same way I made it. Only I didn't add any peppers. Only two of my kids liked peppers.

The one food I hated from the school cafeteria was the Indian Pudding. Bleck!!!

 

[taxlady]

Same way I made it. Only I didn't add any peppers. Only two of my kids liked peppers.

The one food I hated from the school cafeteria was the Indian Pudding. Bleck!!!

I only remember hating the mac & cheese and the scalloped potatoes. Our favourite was Thursday, hot dog day.

 

[Zhizara]

Well, if we're going to reminisce about school cafeteria food, I'd like to say that I still remember and would love to have again, salmon crocquets. They were kind of cone shaped and served with white sauce. I just know I loved them!

 

[Dawgluver]

I only remember hating the mac & cheese and the scalloped potatoes. Our favourite was Thursday, hot dog day.

I've never understood the affinity for mac & cheese, to me it tastes like glue. School scalloped potatoes have always been really good, though, in elementary school and in all the schools I've worked at. The hot dogs were always boiled, and kind of rubbery. I don't recall Indian pudding or salmon croquettes.

 

[Andy M.]

Hands down, far and away, the absolute best school cafeteria food I ever had was a dish called "pork and gravy". It was served over mashed potatoes and was so sinfully good I couldn't get enough. I can still taste it and I still miss it.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

1.Thick crust home-made pizza with tomato sauce, ground beef and cheese
2.Freshly made mashed potatoes, with roast beef and gravy
3.Fish Sticks
4. (a favorite here) pigs in the blanket with fresh yeast bread dough wrapped around full-sized hot dogs, condiments on the side.
5. Sticky buns
6.Noodles and corned beef hash caserole
7. tuna-noodle caserole
8. shephard's pie
9. spaghetti and meat sauce
10. open faced pork sandwiches, with gravy and smashed spuds
11. burgers, freshly made
12. brats with sour kraut

And those are just the ones I can remember. Two of the mothers of kids who went to the same Catholic School that I was in, were the cooks. And they made food as good as any I've ever had. For scholl lunches, we had the best ever. Everthing, including the bread, was made at the school. How I remained rediculously skinny and small during those years is a mystery to me. I ate two of everything, at least, coupled with two eight ounce glases of milk. Even our high school lunches were just a notch below what I ate in grade school.

By the time I had children, the lunches were all made at a central location, and trucked to the schools. It wasn'[t even close to the quality of the meals I had. I felt sorry for them.

Seeeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Zhizara]

Yeah, Chief, I loved the fish sticks too. Not so much now. I like my fish filets poached in garlic butter.

 

[jennyema]

Yeah, Chief, I loved the fish sticks too. Not so much now. I like my fish filets poached in garlic butter.

The first fish I ever ate was fish sticks from the cafeteria in 6th grade

We had just moved from a walk-home-for-lunch state. A restaurant at school seemed cool and exotic!

Btw... I have trader joes fish sticks in the toaster oven as I type.

 

[CarolPa]

Apparently, Andy. I asked DH, who's originally from PA, if he'd heard of ACS. Nope. Then when I described Andy's recipe, he said, "That's goulash."

I don't like elbow macaroni. Otherwise I'd probably make a good cafeteria lady too.

And Bookbrat, we had Chung King with the two cans too! Very exotic!

What part of PA is he from? I'm from SW PA and to me, Andy's recipe is Beefaroni. My mother made chop suey from scratch with the asian veggies and bean sprouts, etc, and we ate it over rice. Goulash was chunks of beef with chunks of potatoes or noodles and a red sauce with paprika. The first time I heard of American Chop Suey is on this board. I also put macaroni in my chili and we call that ChiliMac.

 

[Dawgluver]

What part of PA is he from? I'm from SW PA and to me, Andy's recipe is Beefaroni. My mother made chop suey from scratch with the asian veggies and bean sprouts, etc, and we ate it over rice. Goulash was chunks of beef with chunks of potatoes or noodles and a red sauce with paprika. The first time I heard of American Chop Suey is on this board. I also put macaroni in my chili and we call that ChiliMac.

Harrisburg, and his mom is of PA Dutch stock. Lots of Lebanon baloney and scrapple action going on!

 

[CarolPa]

This looks very close to my mother's Chop Suey.

Chop Suey Recipe - Allrecipes.com