Chop Suey

Posted byNoriePosted inRecipe, VegetablesTags:, ,

Like one of the stories about how the dish called “chop suey” was invented by a Chinese American cook who used leftovers to come up with a dish for late diners, I did just that.

I had a few leftover vegetables in the fridge but I didn’t know what to cook them in.  I had a variety of them but each would not make a dish by itself so I thought of a dish called chop suey and I decided to give it a try. I also had some leftover boiled shrimp that would make this dish.   

I was totally surprised that even my husband ate a lot of it.  Those leftover vegetables did not get wasted. 

For this dish that serves two to three I used:

  • ½ zucchini squash cut in half moons
  • A few sliced dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water to rehydrate
  • A handful of green beans cut 2” long
  • 1 head baby bok choy or a few bok choy cut in 1 ½” pieces, including the leaves
  • ¼ can drained baby corn (use the rest in another dish or freeze them)
  • 1 stalk celery sliced
  • 1 cup carrot sticks
  • ½ lb. shrimp shelled, tails removed
  • 1 green onion cut 2”
  • ½ medium onion, sliced thin
  • 1 large clove garlic or 2 small, smashed and minced
  • 1 small piece ginger root, smashed or cut into sticks
  • 2 TBS. light soy sauce
  • 1 TBS. oyster sauce
  • 2 tsp. Shaoxing wine
  • 1 tsp. Aji Mirin (sweet cooking wine)
  • ½ shrimp bouillon cube
  • 1 tsp. sesame oil (optional)
  • ½ cup water
  • 1 TBS cornstarch dissolved in ¼ cup cool water
  • Dash of black pepper

Procedure:

Heat 2 TBS oil in a wok or skillet.  On medium heat, saute the ginger root until browned. Remove from the oil and discard. In the same oil, saute onions and garlic until the onions are limp and almost transparent, making sure the garlic does not burn. Drop in the mushrooms, cook for a minute, add the shrimp and cook until the shrimp turn pink. Raise the heat to medium-high, add the green beans, carrots and zucchini or the harder vegetables first.  Add the ½ cup water and drop in the ½ shrimp bouillon cube.  Let it simmer until the bouillon dissolves and the vegetables are almost done.  Add the celery and green onions.  Add the soy sauce, oyster sauce and the Shaoxzing wine.  Stir and drop in the greens like bok choy or cabbage if using.  Cook and stir for 1 more minute and add the cornstarch in water.  Boil until thick.  Taste, add more soy sauce or salt to taste.  Add some black pepper to taste.

Serve hot with white rice or chow mein.

The vegetable I did not have was bean sprouts.  I found a can of bean sprouts in the pantry but I opted to throw it away because it was way past its expiration date.  Fresh bean sprouts would be the way to go.

You can use any kind of vegetables you have on hand to make this dish.  Chayote squash sounds good to have also.  You can also substitute any kind of meat like chicken, beef or pork. Use chicken bouillon instead of shrimp.