Even now, I can imagine the smell of my grandmother’s kitchen when she makes Chop Suey: all onions and celery. It has become a smell I love; the smell of a fresh cut onion that lingers on your hands on in your clothes after cooking. Chop Suey is one of my Grandma’s staple specialties; something I have sorely missed on the weekends I didn’t get to go home from university. I had been putting off making it for fear that it just wouldn’t taste the same. It wouldn’t have that same magic grandma-can-make-anything-taste-good flare. So, this past week I embarked on my journey in making this family famous recipe.

Chop Suey is something I had never heard of outside of this one dish my grandma makes and every recipe I’ve found online is a little different. However, the simplicity of the dish as she makes it is its winning quality. It’s essentially a soup of lean, browned pork, onions, celery, and canned bean sprouts all flavored by a few dashes of soy sauce. Once all the flavors of ingredients have combined and melded together, you spoon it over crunchy Chow Mein noodles. All in one bite you get the salty broth, the soft vegetables, the crunch of the noodle, and the chewiness of the tender pork. It’s a recipe that requires a little bit of intuition because, as my grandma writes it, some of the specifics are not so specific. It speaks to the fact that she’s made it so many times, all the steps have become obvious in their repetition as just about everyone’s favorite Sunday dinner dish.

Pictured above is a large stock pot with all the ingredients getting a good simmer.

Chop Suey by Grandma Wells

Below is the recipe written out and annotated by me with some of the things I did.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 - 2 lbs lean pork
4 - 5 stalks celery, diced
3 - 4 medium onions
1 - 2 cans Choy bean sprouts
soy sauce

Directions: 
1. Dice the pork and brown it in some oil. Add a few dashes of soy sauce.
(I added some pepper at this point too). 
2. Add onions and celery to a large soup pot to boil in either water or
broth (I used both. I also added some minced garlic.)
3. Add pork when browned and the cans of bean sprouts. Add more soy sauce 
to taste. Boil/cook for about 15-20 minutes.
4. Serve with cooked rice or Chow Mein noodles. (You can add more soy 
sauce to your personal taste at this point as well.)