chop suey

Maehashi’s chop suey is an American Chinese chicken-and-vegetable stir-fry with a generous light brown sauce. This selected version uses chicken breast, choy sum, carrot, shiitake mushrooms and bean sprouts.

An optional preparation coats the sliced chicken in a little baking soda before rinsing and blotting it. The own sauce mixes cornstarch with light soy, then oyster sauce, Chinese cooking wine, water and white pepper; sesame oil is optional.

Vegetable oil heats in the wok before garlic and onion begin to cook. Chicken follows, then the choy sum stems, carrot and sliced mushrooms enter together.

The leaves from that same choy sum batch join the bean sprouts and prepared sauce near the end. A short stir-fry thickens the sauce while the vegetables retain some crispness.

The chop suey is served immediately with separately prepared rice. Maehashi describes it as a flexible home version of a Chinese restaurant stir-fry, with vegetables added in the order they need to cook.