The bright neon sign announcing “Pekin Cafe CHOP SUEY” seemed to smile as you walked through the double wooden doors.
has been a North Park constant since the 1930s. The elaborate Oriental facade of 2877 University Ave.
Post a video or photo on Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #NPRHotPot, and we'll gather some of our favorites and post them on NPR.org. Tell us a memory you have about a dish you love. Allow to thicken slightly while stirring for 3-5 minutes. Stir into the simmering chicken and vegetables in the pan. Mix the remaining chicken stock with the cornstarch and jalapeño. Saut carrots, celery and onion until onion is golden.Īdd the slices of chicken and sauté until browned.Īdd the sprouts, water chestnuts and black beans. Simmer until two-thirds of the liquid has evaporated, then cover until the steam dissipates. "And it's something we came to know as auntie's stew." Chop Suey With Beans And Rice Recipeġ onion, peeled, halved and sliced thinlyĢ chicken breasts, halved and cut into 1/4 inch cubesġ can water chestnuts (drain out the water)ġ tablespoon diced jalapeño with some seedsĬook rice in 2 cups of chicken stock. The dish, with its simple and hearty ingredients - carrots, celery, beans, chicken (or any other meat or fish) - is healthy and inexpensive. "She believed that everybody should be able to feed their family at minimal cost," says Fajardo. His great-aunt even went on to teach the recipe to every woman in their extended family. And this Mexican adaptation went on to become the restaurant's "family meal" - the employees ate this dish at work, Fajardo says. But what is unique perhaps about Fajardo's chop suey - he calls it chop suey with beans - is that it was revised and reinvented not in a Chinese restaurant, but in a Mexican restaurant.
So it seems only natural that a cuisine that has adapted to local tastes around the globe would continue to evolve in restaurant kitchens. It includes fried rice, called arroz chaufa, that includes corn, a staple in Peru.Īnd as The Salt has reported, Chinese-Mexican food includes many staples of the local cuisine, like "light-yellow deep-fried chilis." There are also rumors of chefs at Chinese restaurants marinating their pork in tequila. PeruvianChinese food blends in both cuisines and goes by the name of chifa. In fact, Chinese cuisine in many countries has adapted to local tastes and ingredients.Ĭhinese-Indian food, for example, folds in Indian spices, paneer (Indian cheese) and plenty of Indian vegetables like potato, okra and cauliflower. The vast majority of Chinese-American food did. It's not just chop suey that evolved to American palates. The result was nothing like the original dish eaten in China, which according to Liu was mostly a home-cooked dish that also "varied from region to region." The only common practice was to use a wok to stir-fry a bundle of ingredients with an innovative sauce." "There are many different versions of chop suey when it was first spread across America. "When Chinese restaurants in America began to serve the dish, they had the flexibility to use whatever ingredients were available and whatever sauces they found tasteful and convenient," writes Haiming Liu, a professor at California State Polytechnic University, in his 2009 paper. It was made by taking a humble dish made with fried animal intestines and vegetables and adapting it to the tastes of American customers. It probably evolved simultaneously in many restaurants.
But according to a 2009 study published in the Journal of Transnational American Studies, there was no single creator. The story behind the dish's origin is filled with folklore, with many regions and people claiming to be its creator. The dish originated in some of the first Chinese restaurants in America, many of them called chop suey houses. Take, for example, the origin of chop suey itself. And it is especially true of Chinese food in America. The story behind the creation of this Chinese-Mexican fusion dish may seem surprising, but it illustrates a culinary exchange not uncommon in places where different cultures and cuisines coexist.
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