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Chop Suey (Lb veal beef and pork cut)
1½ lb. veal, beef and pork cut in small cubes (or chicken) 1 C sliced onions 2 C celery cut in small pieces 1 large green pepper (cut) 1 can mushrooms Salt and pepper to taste Fuji Chop Suey Sauce to taste Brown the meat and onion in fat. Cover with boiling water and simmer slowly for two hours, or until tender. About one hour before serving add celery and green pepper and about three tablespoons Fuji Sauce. A small amount of bead molasses may be added if desired. Just before serving, thicken liquor a little with flour thickening and add mushrooms. Serve with boiled rice. 1 lb. beef, diced 1 lb. pork, diced 1 can mushrooms 2 stalks celery 6 Chinese potatoes
A church-supper version of a Chinese-American restaurant standard, written when the sauce came from a bottle and the vegetables were expected to cook down to softness. Two adjustments make the difference between a stew and a chop suey.
- Cut the vegetable timeAn hour of simmering leaves celery and green pepper limp and grey. Braise the meat until tender, then add the celery and pepper for the last 8 to 10 minutes so they still have snap.
- Fuji Chop Suey SauceA branded bottled sauce of the period, apparently soy-based, and no longer sold. Three tablespoons of ordinary soy sauce, or soy with a spoonful of oyster sauce, sits in the same place; salt at the end rather than the start, since soy carries plenty.
- Bead molassesNot baking molasses but the thick, dark, only faintly sweet syrup sold alongside canned chop suey vegetables, used mainly for colour. A teaspoon of dark molasses thinned with water, or a little dark soy, gives the same effect. It is optional and easy to overdo.
- Chinese potatoesAmbiguous. The phrase turns up in American grocery and cookbook usage for several different things: water chestnuts, jicama, and taro or Chinese yam all appear under it, and the original gives no way to settle it. If water chestnuts are what was meant, drain and add them with the mushrooms so they stay crisp.
- The second ingredient listThe page ends with what looks like a variant list, probably a second contributor's version printed without its method. Cook it by the instructions above, treating the celery and water chestnuts as late additions.
- Canned mushroomsAdded at the end only to warm through, which is right for canned. If you use fresh, brown them separately in a little fat first; dropped into the braising liquid they will simply go slack and dilute it.
- Thickening"flour thickening" means a flour-and-water slurry. A cornstarch slurry, about a tablespoon in two of cold water, gives the glossier, lighter sauce associated with the dish; it still needs a short boil to thicken and clear, though far less cooking than flour.
- YieldA pound and a half of meat plus vegetables and rice serves six generously. The braise reheats well and is arguably better the next day, though the vegetables should be added fresh if you are cooking ahead.
Chop suey is Chinese-American rather than Chinese, its name generally traced to Cantonese tsap seui, roughly "miscellaneous bits" or "assorted scraps." It spread through American cities from the 1890s onward as chop suey houses opened well beyond the Chinatowns, and by the 1920s and 1930s it had become domestic cooking: a braise of cheap diced meat stretched with celery and onion, thickened, and served over rice. That it is credited by the source book to a Presbyterian church cookbook in Libertyville, Illinois, is the point of the entry. The naturalising touch is the shopping list, which assumes a home cook can buy a bottle of a branded chop suey sauce, canned mushrooms and "bead molasses" at the local grocery.