Cut green onions into pieces 1 1/4 inches long. Thin-sliced or subgum (diced) chop suey may take slightly longer, but clearly all permutations qualify as fast food. In less than 5 minutes, the chop suey will be on the table or inside the carryout cartons. Then they blend the mixture with the soy-sauce-laced gravy, which is prepared separately and functions primarily as a binding agent. His cooks-using instinct, rather than measurements-throw the chunks in with stir-fried onions, celery, bok choy and water chestnuts. We mix that with beef, chicken, pork or shrimp, whatever meat people want, and stir-fry it.''Īt Steve Lee`s in Forest Park (the sort of place where waitresses assume that American diners prefer silverware), owner Moy keeps pots of chunky pork stewing in the kitchen for the dark, somewhat heavy, chop suey that customers demand most. ''It`s just Chinese cabbage-the leafy part of bok choy-and water chestnuts, bamboo shoots and bean sprouts. Mostly they`re Americans-and maybe some Mexicans.''Īt Chiam, a popular tourist stop on Wentworth Avenue, Richard Wong, the owner`s son, said, ''We still get a lot of calls for it.'' His bored voice indicated that preparation does not impose much challenge. ''I sell more authentic Chinese food than chop suey,'' said Pauline Wong at New Lung Fung, ''but still people come and ask for it. She refused to be swept up by the mania, but most purveyors of Oriental food who depend on American trade ignore chop suey at their peril.

One Vietnamese restaurateur recently sold her business partly because she became fed up with so many requests for what she considered to be a barbaric carry-out. Most-except those catering to sophisticates or offering Far Eastern delicacies untouched by Chinese-American influence-put some form of chop suey on the menu. Lee said he named the concoction (also a blend of vegetables, meat and flour) ''Li Hung Chang Chop Suey,'' just as some deli operators now label sandwiches ''the Morry Amsterdam'' or ''the Shecky Greene.''Īsian restaurants, of course, have proliferated since then. In 1931, a Chicago restaurateur named Albert Lee told a Tribune reporter that he had invented chop suey at the Tuxedo Cafe in New York City, shortly after Li Hung Chang`s visit.

Cooking light recipe pork chop suey