American chop suey – with extra flavor!

I have yet to dig out my Mom’s American Chop Suey recipe, (my sister-in-law Lorraine and I take turns having her recipe box at our houses for a few months at a time) and this does not taste like hers.

First of all, this dish tastes different if you use ground beef, and especially if you brown it in a stainless steel verus a nonstick pan. (i think you get a deeper flavor in a SS pan.) BUT, I was playing around with flavors so as to avoid that “canned tomato taste. And, while many recipes for this dish use stewed tomatoes, I just am not that fond of them, so I used a combination of diced and fresh tomatoes.

Heres what I came up with this time – and it is darn good!:

3 tbsp olive oil

1 medium/largish onion, chopped

½ a small green pepper, diced

1 stalk celery, diced

20 oz pack ground turkey

1 6 oz can tomato paste

1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes

2 medium/largish fresh tomatoes

1 Tbsp or so sugar

1 tsp (or to taste) salt

1-2 tsp Worcester sauce

1 tsp or more lemon juice

salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste.

4 or 5 cups cooked pasta (penne, elbows, whatever) cooked to just done and NOT rinsed.

In a large skillet sauté celery, onion and green pepper in olive oil. Add ground turkey and cook until turkey is browned. Add tomato paste, diced canned and fresh tomatoes, sugar, Worcester Sauce, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

Simmer on low heat for20-30 minutes. Cook whole wheat elbows according to package instructions and drain, but do not rinse.

In a large bowl, mix sauce with pasta.

NOTE: I had penne pasta leftover from the night before and I actually didn’t measure how much I put in, but I think I added about 4-5 cups cooked pasta. Many ACS recipes call for a pound of dry pasta to each pound of ground meat, but I don’t like that much pasta.

I am also guessing to the lemon juice and Worcester Sauce amounts – but I think I did about a tsp or so of each. In any case, this recipe came out really well! It has a fresh flavor and a light verus stickly feel to it. I think I’ll keep it as my standard – although I’ll have to figure out how much dry pasta to cook for the resulting 4-5 cups. Best bet is to cook more than you’ll think you’ll need, and whatever you don’t add to the recipe, you can always use for something else. 🙂