Gai Yuk Chee Yuk (Chicken and Pork Chop Suey)

History

Chop suey appears in Chinese texts as early as the late 16th century, referenced in the folk novel Journey to the West, and reappeared frequently in Chinese cookbooks from other regions. In the 18th or 19th century, All Mutton Recipes instructed cooks on preparing chop suey from sheep organs stewed in blood soup, steamed, or wok-fried, topped with green onions, pepper, parsley, and glazed lotus seeds; the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty (reigning 1735–1796) regularly consumed this preparation flash-fried, stewed, and pickled. Yet the dish that captured American imaginations was born not in China's imperial kitchens but in the immigration pressures of the 19th century. The Toisan region of Guangdong, whose farmers grew vegetables as principal crops and used every part of pigs and fowl, sent migrants to the United States by the thousands. It was Toisanese who migrated by the thousands to the United States and dominated early American Chinatowns.

Chop suey started appearing in America in the 1880s, becoming fashionable among non-Chinese Americans despite entrenched anti-Chinese racism. In 1886, journalist Allan Forman recalled a splendid meal at New York's Mong Sing Wah, describing chop suey as a toothsome stew composed of bean sprouts, chicken's gizzards and livers, calf's tripe, dragon fish dried and imported from China, pork, chicken, and various other ingredients. Chinese-American journalist Wong Chin Foo first mentioned the dish in a list of common dishes he believed might appeal to Western tastes, noting that each cook had his own recipe. As the dish moved out of Chinatown, restaurant owners altered it: the gizzards and tripe (mistakable for rat or cat meat) were replaced by easily identifiable pork, chicken, or beef, while the wide variety of vegetables was reduced to a fixed roster of bean sprouts, celery, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and onions. Vegetables were cooked softer than they would have been in Chinese kitchens, where they were kept crisp.

The dish was preserved in the culinary record through Sara Bosse and Winnifred Eaton's Chinese-Japanese Cook Book, published in 1914 and regarded as the first Asian cookbook published in North America. Eaton, a Canadian author of Chinese-British ancestry, published under the pseudonym Onoto Watanna, and her version of this chicken-and-pork variation reflects the dish as it had evolved in early 20th-century American kitchens—a testament to immigrant resourcefulness and culinary adaptation under the constraints of both scarcity and prejudice. By the start of the 20th century chop suey had reached fashionable American tables, served at club meetings, plays and formal balls, and at Chicago's Victoria Hotel and upscale private parties.

Ingredients

• 0.5 pound breast of chicken
• 0.5 pound lean pork
• 3 tablespoon sweet lard
• 0.5 pound mushrooms
• 0.5 bunch celery
• 12 lotus seeds or water chestnuts
• 0.5 can bamboo shoots
• 2 pound bean sprouts
• 1 medium onion
• 1.5 teaspoon syou
• 0.5 teaspoon salt
• dash cayenne pepper

Instructions

1. Cut half a pound of chicken from the breast and half a pound of lean pork into small pieces.
2. Heat three tablespoonfuls of sweet lard in a pan; when well melted, add the meat and fry until brown, stirring frequently to prevent burning.
3. While the meat cooks, wash fresh or dried mushrooms in lukewarm water; if using dried, soak for ten minutes and remove the stalks.
4. Chop half a bunch of celery small.
5. Peel and slice a dozen lotus seeds or water chestnuts into thin slices.
6. Cut up one onion and prepare half a can of bamboo shoots.
7. Measure out two pounds of bean sprouts, wash all vegetables well, and drain in a colander.
8. Add all the prepared vegetables except the bean sprouts to the cooked meat and cook for ten minutes.
9. Add the bean sprouts, one and one half teaspoonfuls of syou, a dash of cayenne pepper, and salt.
10. Cook for five minutes more.
11. Serve with rice.