chop suey

plural chop sueys

1. AustraliaPhilippinesUScountableuncountableA stir-fried vegetable dish, served with pieces of beef or pork in a semi-thick sauce, and often soy sauce.

   There was feasting and joy from Shanghai to the Wall, What with dim-sims, chop-suey and crackers and all, And the donor of these, by the hook of my crook. Was Chiang Ki-Konglong, the Mandarin Cook.

   1929 February 10, The Sunday Times, Sydney, page 26, column 7

   2 more examples

   On the walls about were the hieroglyphic markings of the craft. Across this scene wafted the pungent fragrance of chop suey, dim sims and other delicacies in course of preparation for the funeral feast.

   1926 December 16, The Telegraph, Brisbane, page 20, column 7

   Without access to key ingredients from their homeland, Chinese immigrants in the United States working on the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s improvised dishes like chow mein and chop suey that nobody back in their native land would have recognized.

   2007 June 18, Nina Zagat, Tim Zagat, “Meanwhile: Eating Beyond Sichuan”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC

2. CanadaUKcountableuncountableSteamed bean sprouts served in a semi-thick sauce, and mixed with a choice of meat and/or vegetables.

   To someone who had spent part of their youth visiting a grandmother in Singapore, a lot of the food they served didn’t seem particularly Chinese to me: the flavour of chop suey with its chicken or pork or prawns, or chow mein, or the omeletty foo yung, never seemed quite right.

   2011, Clarissa Dickson Wright, A History of English Food, London: Random House Books, →ISBN, page 455