#Chicken chop suey chinese food free#
I use the baking soda method which is the technique I’m sharing today because it’s the most fuss free and just as effective as the cornstarch method which I’ve tried numerous times, using various combinations (egg whites, no egg whites, shoaxing wine, deep frying, water blanching). Marinating in a cornstarch/cornflour sludge then deep frying or blanching in water before proceeding to cook in the stir fryĮgg whites – sometimes the above method is also done using egg whites There are actually a few different ways to tenderise chicken the Chinese restaurant way: “Velvet” like – hence the name! How do Chinese Restaurants tenderise chicken? The chicken fibres are broken down so the chicken becomes much softer on the inside and surface. Velveting chicken does not add any flavour so it tastes just like normal chicken. I find chicken thigh tender and juicy enough to use without tenderising. I only tenderise chicken breast because it’s so lean. Rinse well under running water, pat with paper towel to remove excess waterĬook per chosen recipe and marvel at the most tender chicken breast you’ve ever had, just like at Chinese restaurants!!! Velveting Chicken: Tenderise chicken the Chinese restaurant way!įor every 250g/8oz chicken breast strips or pieces, toss with 3/4 tsp baking soda (bi-carb) It’s called “ velveting chicken” and it’s the Chinese way to tenderise chicken breast so it’s unbelievably tender and juicy. This is a closely guarded Chinese restaurant secret that’s going to revolutionise your stir fries and stir fried noodles that you make with chicken breast. It’s a quick and easy method that any home cook can do, and can also be used for beef. Use this for all your favourite Chinese chicken dishes, like Cashew Chicken, Chicken Stir Fry, Chow Mein and Kung Pao Chicken. When prepared by cooks who understand the essence of stir-frying - high heat, short cooking time and just enough thick sticky brownish sauce to coat the ingredients - chop suey can be a truly delicious dish.Ever notice how the chicken in stir fries at your favourite Chinese restaurant is incredibly tender? It’s because they tenderise chicken using a simple method called Velveting Chicken using baking soda. Today, chop suey is cooked in pretty much the same way that most meat and vegetable stir fries are. It was so bad that the Chinese in America did not eat it.īut all that was long ago. American-style chop suey, in its earliest form, bore little resemblance to anything found in China. The immigrants who introduced the stir fry to America were not skilled cooks, and their attempt to replicate the dish from home was more Frankenstein-like than anything else. The difference between the source and the adaptation is in the cooking. While the term chop suey itself, spelled that way, may be an American thing, there are anthropological bases that the Chinese-American chop suey is most probably an adaption of the Chinese tsap seui (literally, “miscellaneous leftovers”), a dish found in Guandong where many of the early Chinese immigrants to the United States came from. Just think of fried rice and you get the idea. The story, in either version, sounds plausible enough especially when we consider how good the Chinese are at salvaging leftovers because being wasteful is frowned upon in Asia. American miners demanded food, the flustered Chinese cook didn’t have much to cook with so he got creative. He tossed them together, added sauce, and chop suey was born.Ī variation of the story pins the birth of chop suey during the Gold Rush. You might have read the story that, during the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad when the Chinese flocked to the United States to seek work, American laborers wanted food but there was this Chinese cook had only bits and pieces of meat and vegetables.
If that’s not confusing enough, I would learn much later that the American tale might be more myth than fact. Then I read that the dish was born in America. Along with sweet sour pork, I grew up thinking that chop suey was the quintessential Chinese food.
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