Chicken marinated in soy sauce and sugar, then stir-fried at high heat with onion, carrot, cabbage, bell pepper, celery, cucumber, broccoli and bean sprouts. Eight vegetables, thirty minutes at the stove, and it is mostly chopping.
The sugar in the marinade is what makes it the Colombian version rather than the Chinese-American one.
Where chop suey comes from, and how it got here
Chop suey is Chinese-American rather than Chinese. It was made by Chinese immigrant cooks in the United States in the nineteenth century, and the name comes from a Cantonese phrase meaning roughly odds and ends, which describes it accurately.
From there it spread through Latin America, and like arroz chino it picked up local habits along the way. The Colombian version is sweeter, thanks to the sugar in the marinade, and carries more vegetables than most.
So if you know chop suey from a Chinese restaurant in the US, expect something a little sweeter and a little greener.
Chop everything first
This is the only real discipline a stir fry demands. Once the pan is hot the whole thing takes sixteen minutes, and there is no moment in it to stop and cut a carrot.
Everything goes into julienne or thin strips, which is not decoration: thin pieces cook through in the seconds they spend against hot metal, while chunks stay raw in the middle or force you to cook everything else to death waiting for them.
Line the bowls up in the order the vegetables go in and the cooking becomes easy.
The order matters
The recipe stages the vegetables deliberately, and it is worth following.
- First: onion, garlic, carrot. The densest and slowest.
- Then: cabbage and bell pepper.
- Then: broccoli and celery, which need less than you would think when cut thin.
- Last, and only four minutes: the bean sprouts. Their whole job is crunch, and it is gone if they cook.
Tip everything in at once and you get a pan of uniformly soft vegetables, which is a perfectly edible dinner and not a chop suey.
High heat, and room to move
A wok is ideal because its shape keeps a small hot area at the bottom and gives you somewhere to push things that are done. A deep frying pan does the job.
What matters more than the pan is not crowding it. Every cold ingredient that goes in drops the temperature, and past a certain point the pan stops searing and starts steaming. Steamed vegetables release water, the water pools, and nothing browns. If your pan is small, cook in two batches.
Keep it all moving. That is what stir frying is.
The soy sauce, split in two
Half a cup in total, and it does two separate jobs.
A quarter cup goes into the marinade with the sugar, where it seasons the chicken from the inside over twenty-five minutes. The other quarter goes into the wok at the end, where it coats everything and reduces slightly against the heat.
Drain the chicken before it goes into the pan. Marinade carried in with it lowers the temperature and the chicken poaches rather than sears.
Serving it
The recipe suggests brown rice or wholemeal bread, which is a slightly health-conscious take. White rice is what it is usually eaten with in Colombia, and it works just as well.
It is dry as written, which suits it. If you prefer it saucier, add a little more soy sauce or a splash of chicken broth halfway through.
Related recipes
- Colombian Chinese rice — the other Colombian dish that came from the same kitchens.
- Colombian white rice — what to serve it on.
- Chicken stew — the slow version of the same breast.
Colombian Chop Suey FAQ
The sugar. Two tablespoons go into the soy sauce marinade, which gives the chicken a sweet edge that the Chinese-American version does not have. It also uses more vegetables than most, eight in all, and finishes with cucumber and bean sprouts rather than water chestnuts.
Chinese-American, and the origin stories are contested. It was created by Chinese immigrant cooks in the United States in the nineteenth century, and the name comes from a Cantonese phrase meaning odds and ends. From there it travelled to Latin America and picked up local habits, including this one.
Hardest first. Onion, garlic and carrot need the longest, then cabbage and bell pepper, then broccoli and celery. Bean sprouts go in at the very end and cook for barely four minutes, because their entire contribution is crunch and two minutes too long takes it away.
No, a deep frying pan works. What matters is high heat and enough room to keep everything moving: a crowded pan drops in temperature and the vegetables steam and go limp instead of searing. If your pan is small, cook in two batches rather than piling it in.
Half a cup in total, split in two. A quarter cup goes into the marinade with the sugar, and the other quarter goes into the wok at step 4. The old wording made it sound like you needed a further half cup on top, which you do not.
Add a little more soy sauce, or a quarter cup of chicken broth, halfway through the cooking. This version is fairly dry as written, which suits it: the vegetables keep their bite and it is not sitting in liquid on the plate.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 chicken breast, cut into pieces
- 1 medium onion, cut into julienne
- 2 tablespoons sugar (for the marinade; this is what sets the Colombian version apart)
- 1 carrot, cut into thin julienne
- ½ cup cabbage, cut into thin strips
- 1 red or yellow bell pepper, cut into julienne (pimentón in Colombia means bell pepper, not paprika)
- 1 stalk celery, cut into thin slices
- ½ cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into thin julienne
- 5 broccoli florets, halved
- ½ cup bean sprouts, well washed (they go in at the very end so they stay crisp)
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon garlic paste, or 1 clove well crushed
- ½ cup soy sauce (half goes into the marinade and half into the wok)
- Oregano, salt, pepper and thyme, to taste
Notas
Instructions
- First, mix the sugar with a quarter cup of the soy sauce, pour it over the chicken pieces in a bowl and leave them to marinate for about 25 minutes.
- Drain the marinated chicken and add it to a wok, or a deep frying pan, with the tablespoon of oil. Start stir-frying over medium-high heat.
- After one minute, add the vegetables one at a time, starting with the onion, garlic, carrot, cabbage and bell pepper, stirring as you go. Add the broccoli and celery last.
- Add the remaining quarter cup of soy sauce, the salt and the spices, stirring. All of this takes about 12 minutes.
- Finally add the bean sprouts and cook for four minutes more, or until the vegetables are done to your liking.
- Serve hot with brown rice or wholemeal bread.
Comments
No Comments