American Chop Suey

 American Chop Suey. This is a recipe I discovered on the New England Today page.  It sounded and looked incredibly delicious.  I printed out in short time and put it on my to do list.

Yesterday was the day.  I cut the recipe in half as there are only two of us. I have given that down-sized recipe here. If you want the full one, just click the link above. Its fantastic!

 For me to call this fantastic is no small feat.  You can consider that high praise indeed.  Since I was a child I have had a strong aversion to eating ground beef mixed into anything. 

It always made me gag. It was a texture thing. My mom always bought the cheapest meat she could. I don’t fault her for that. She was being economical, or trying to be.  It was always filled with gristle and sometimes bits of bone.

I have always been extremely sensitive to anything like that. Even paper touching my teeth makes me gag. I cannot stand it. They have a name for it now. Its called Tactile Defensiveness. There was no name for it back then.

My parents just thought I was being awkward.  I used to get punished for it. I was probably one of ht few people on the planet who could take a plate of mixed meat and pasta and eat just the pasta, leaving every speck of meat behind. After a while my mother stopped giving me anything with hamburger in it.

 Recently I have been buying extra lean ground steak and using that in my cooking. It does cost more than ground beef, but it is worth every penny.

I have discovered that I am able to eat it without any problem. In fact I am actually starting to enjoy it.  I am ever so pleased about that.  Making this American Chop Suey was final proof to me that I can do it. It was delicious. 

There is a saying here in the UK, which goes, “There’s naught so queer as folk.”  I think that saying would apply here.  There is nothing remotely Chinese about this dish. 

What it is is an amazingly flexible, easy and forgiving dish that can be hacked together in a myriad of ways.  This way I am showing you today, is incredibly delicious, and my favourite!

 This has comfort food written all over it. It has “family-pleasing” written right into it’s DNA.  There is nothing about this not to fall in love with.

Simple ingredients are put together in a very simple way.  I bet you have just about everything in your kitchen right now to make this!

 I use Garofalo Pasta in recent years. Not only do they have a wide variety of types and shapes available, but it is excellent pasta. I used their “macaroni” for this. It worked beautifully.

For many years here in the UK I could not find elbow macaroni. There are some things that are just better with elbow macaroni if you know what I mean.  Shape is everything when it comes to pasta and the sauces you serve with them.

 As I aready told you above, I used lean ground steak.  I get it from my butcher and it is worth every single penny in quality, texture and taste. 

The vegetables used are a fresh green pepper and a medium onion.  Just one of each and both chopped. Not too large, not too fine.  A medium dice.

 It uses a jar of spaghetti sauce.  Sauce is everything and I have learned that when it to spaghetti sauce, you get what you pay for. I used a small jar of Lloyd Grossman’s Basil and Tomato Spaghetti Sauce. 

It has a beautiful texture and is filled with lovely bits of real tomato and plenty of basil.  If you want a well flavoured dish, do opt to buy a good quality sauce. It will make a huge difference.

There is also garlic in the dish. One clove minced. I have been using the jarred minced garlic in recent months. I have had a difficult time finding fresh garlic that doesn’t taste funny to me.  

The quality and taste in the jarred is always  spot on for me. I keep saying every year I am going to try growing my own, but then I don’t.  This year was no different. I didn’t.

 Cheese.  The original recipe called for just Mozzarella cheese. This gets sprinkled on top. I mixed Mozzarella with grated Jack cheese and it was excellent I have to say!  EX-CELL-ENT! 

It had just the right amount of flavour and just enough gooeyness.  In short, it was perfect. Don’t skip sprinkling more gren pepper on top.  It adds a special “je ne sais quoi!”

This is delicious served with a side salad and perhaps some crusty bread, depending on appetites. On this particular occasion we enjoyed it with a salad alone. 

This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com Thanks so much for visiting. Do come again! 

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Debunking the myths of English Cookery, one recipe at a time.
The English Kitchen
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