Category: Main Dishes

Alan’s Mom’s Chop Suey

    Maybe it was because my mother wanted to introduce her family to exotic foods, or perhaps the A & P was having a sale on cans of Chinese vegetables. All I know is that she started putting a big bowl of meat and strange vegetables on the table. Some of them looked like white worms. Mom told us they were bean sprouts, but we kids were still suspicious.

    Today I really like bean sprouts, but they were not my favorite until I got to the University of Wisconsin and discovered a neat little Chinese restaurant near Capitol Square. It was an inexpensive place to get a good meal on Sunday nights when the dining halls were closed, and in the 1960’s you and your date could each have a bottle of beer with your dinner.

    Bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, even tofu all rank pretty high on my list of enjoyable foods. Not as high as barbecued burnt ends, Esther’s sour cream raisin pie or nice medium rare steak, but close. I even like a plate of old-fashioned Chop Suey like Mom used to make.

    When our friend Alan mentioned that his mother’s Chop Suey recipe was still his favorite, I was interested in trying it. Alan obliged, I made it and can say that it is a lot like my mother used to make. It’s a recipe that puts a lot of food on the table without draining the food budget, and it introduces kids to some strange vegetables.

    I did make a few changes to the recipe. Alan’s mother specified veal instead of beef. I couldn’t find any and used beef. The only Chinese vegetables I could find were labelled Chop suey vegetables. Both worked fine. After dinner, Jerri and I both thought that the Chop suey was a little saltier than we preferred, so I reduced the salt to a quarter teaspoon and the soy sauce to two tablespoons.

    We were both pleasantly surprised at how tender, juicy and flavorful the meat was. It’s a good dish, and I can understand why Alan still likes it.

    INGREDIENTS:

    3/4 cup sliced onion
    2 T vegetable shortening or oil
    1/2 lb. boneless pork
    1/2 lb. boneless veal or beef
    2 – 3 cups hot water
    1/4 tsp. onion salt
    1 1/2 cups diced celery
    2 T soy sauce
    1/4 tsp. Accent
    1 4 oz. can mushrooms, undrained
    1 #2 1/2 can Chop Suey vegetables, undrained (29 oz., 3 1/2 cups)
    2 T cornstarch
    3 T cold water
    Freshly ground black pepper to taste

    PROCEDURE:

    Slice the meat into thin strips, an eighth to three sixteenths-inch thick and two to three inches long. Clean and chop the celery into half-inch pieces.

    Slice the onion into quarter-inch wide by two-inch long strips. Put two tablespoons shortening or oil in a covered skillet and cook the onions over moderate heat until they begin to turn golden. Remove the onions from the pan and brown the meat in the same pan. The meat should be slightly browned but not crisp. Bring about about three cups of water to a boil.

    After the meat has browned, cover the meat with hot water and stir in the onion salt, cover the skillet loosely and simmer the meat for thirty to forty minutes. Add the celery, soy sauce and Accent and simmer another fifteen minutes. Stir in the mushrooms, chow mein vegetables and browned onion.

    Mix two tablespoons cornstarch with three tablespoons cold water and add the mixture to the skillet along with a grind of black pepper. Bring back to a simmer and cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce is clear and thickened. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

    Pour into a serving bowl and serve with white rice. Offer soy sauce at the table in case somebody would like extra seasoning.

    NOTES: Do not drain the mushrooms or vegetables. Omit the Accent if you wish. Alan’s mother’s directions said to pour the chop suey into a casserole and serve.

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

Gumbo is a stew that was invented in Louisiana sometime before 1764, because there is a reference to gumbo in the notes about an interrogation of Julia (Comba), a slave questioned about her knowledge of a runaway slave named Louis, on September 4, 1764. The name may have come from an African word for okra or from a Native American word for sassafras, and both are used for thickening many gumbos.

What is known for certain is that millions of people love gumbo, and I am one of them. There are almost as many recipes for gumbos as there are cooks. This one is from Leon E. Soniat’s La Bouche Creole, the cookbook where I found my recipe for Shrimp Etouffée. It is full of flavor without being spicy hot unless you add lots of filé powder.

Though the list of ingredients is rather long, making gumbo is easy. The roux takes some time, but if you keep the heat low, you can prepare the vegetables and still have time to taste the wine you plan to serve for dinner. A gewürztraminer or riesling goes well with chicken and sausage gumbo. It should be chilled, so put the bottles in the fridge after the vegetables are simmering in the broth.

INGREDIENTS:

3 to 4 lbs. chicken cut into serving pieces
5 T vegetable oil or lard
6 T all-purpose flour
2 large onions (3 1/2 to 4”)
1 green bell pepper
1 cup chopped celery
3 large cloves garlic
1 1/2 lbs. andouille or smoked sausage
6 cups chicken stock or broth
1/2 tsp. crushed thyme
3 bay leaves
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1/8 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. ground cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. crushed basil
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped green onions
filé powder (optional)

PROCEDURE:

Heat the oil or lard in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Fry the chicken until the pieces are browned. Remove them from the pan and set them aside on paper towels on a platter or baking pan. Cut the sausage into bite-sized pieces and fry them for four or five minutes. Remove them from the Dutch oven with a slotted spoon.

Reduce the heat to low and add the flour to the oil in the pan. Use a wooden spoon to mix the flour with the oil and cook very slowly. Continue stirring and cooking until you have a brown roux about the color of milk chocolate. This can take up to a half hour.

Clean and chop the vegetables while the roux is cooking, stopping often to stir it. Remove the stem and root ends from the onions along with the dry outer layer and mince them into an eighth-inch dice. Cut the pepper in half lengthwise. Remove the stem, seeds and white membranes and chop the pepper into a quarter to half-inch dice. Chop the celery into half-inch pieces. Put the prepared vegetables into a bowl.

Add the chopped onions, pepper and celery to the roux and cook five or six minutes until the vegetables are limp.

Peel and mince the garlic. When the vegetables are limp, stir in the chicken stock, then add the garlic, thyme, bay leaves, cloves, allspice, cayenne, basil, salt and pepper. Raise the heat to medium and bring the pan to a boil while stirring continuously, then reduce the heat to low and simmer the gumbo for forty-five minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally.

Return the chicken and sausage to the Dutch oven and simmer the gumbo until the chicken is tender, usually twenty to thirty minutes.

Clean and chop the green onions into a quarter inch dice. When the chicken is done, remove the Dutch oven from the heat and stir in the onions. Cover and let the gumbo sit for ten to fifteen minutes. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve in bowls over rice with a green salad and some good bread. Add a pinch or two of filé powder to each plateful if you wish.

NOTES: If you are confident about your skill at making roux, you can turn the heat up, stir like crazy and have it done in under ten minutes. But if you end up with a black mess and have to start over, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.