history

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INGREDIENTS – VEGGIE & CHICKEN MIX

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8 eggs

1 small chicken breast

1 medium white onion

2 stalks green onion

1 stalk celery

1 garlic clove

1 cup bean sprouts

2 teaspoons sesame oil

½ teaspoon cornstarch (3 more tablespoons below)

1½ tablespoons soy sauce (¼ cup more below)

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon white pepper

2 tablespoons peanut oil

no-stick spray

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INGREDIENTS – SAUCE

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3 tablespoons cornstarch

¼ cup soy sauce

1 tablespoon dry sherry

⅔ cup water

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Serves 4. Takes 35 minutes.

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PREPARATION – VEGGIES & CHICKEN MIX

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Beat eggs. Dice chicken breast, white onion, green onion, celery, and garlic clove. Put sesame oil in frying pan or skillet. Add white onion, green onion, celery, garlic, and sprouts. Cook on  for about 5 minutes on medium heat or until veggies are tender. Stir frequently.

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Add chicken breast, ½ teaspoon cornstarch, 1½ tablespoons soy sauce, salt, and white pepper. Cook for about 3 minutes on medium or until chicken bits have all changed color. Stir enough to prevent burning. Remove veggie/chicken mixture from frying pan and set aside.

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Spray pan with no-stick spray. Add peanut oil. Cook peanut oil on medium heat. Add ¼ of the beaten eggs and cook with medium heat until egg begin to set. Use a spatula to cut this big patty into 4 patties. Flip over all egg patties. (You might want to use two spatulas.)

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Add ⅓ of the veggie-chicken mix to the top of the 4 patties. Add another ¼ of the beaten eggs and cook on medium until egg on top begins to set. Flip these egg foo young patties. You should now have 2 layers of egg and 1 of mix for each patty. Repeat this step 2 more times until you have 4 layers of eggs and 3 of the mix. Don’t let the  egg layers burn. Place patties on serving plates.

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PREPARATION – SAUCE

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Add 3 tablespoons cornstarch and ¼ cup soy sauce to small mixing bowl. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended. Add dry sherry and water. Mix with fork or whisk until well blended. Add this mix to pan. Bring to boil using medium heat. Remove from heat. Mix with spatula until sauce thickens. Ladle or brush sauce onto egg foo young patties.

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TIDBITS

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1) Many solar orbits ago, 1728 in fact, the second half of the Foo clan finally set off from China in search of culinary freedom. But where to go? They decided to let the next morning Sun decide. As luck would have it, the Sun rose in the east. So they trekked east to America.

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2) Their leader Egg was a good man. So much so, that for ever after, whenever a man was held to be a nice guy, people would call him a “good egg.”

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3) Anyway, Egg Foo led his tribe to the Asia-North America land bridge, which no longer existed in 1738. The Land Bridge had only existed up to 16,000 years ago. The first half of the Foos had managed to cross the Bridge before it disappeared. But Chow Fun had lead the first Foos and he was a dynamic, go getter.

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4) The nice Egg Foo was not. In fact, the second Foos were rather disorganized. They really meant to leave only after the first Foos departed. But delay after delay occurred. The Foos would seem to be ready, then a little girl would forget her doll. Alfonso Foo–a Spaniard who’d married into the Foo clan–realized he’d forgotten his spear and went back into his tent to get it. Hunana Foo, decided to go through her mail. This reminded Xiangzhao Foo that she had forgotten to stop her mail and so hopped off to the post office to do so. In the meantime, Zingzin Foo had gotten peckish and decided to have a rather robust breakfast. Meilee Foo, went through her wardrobe for the 32nd time.

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“Did everyone remember to bring snacks?” asked Egg, No one had. So, all the Foos went back to their tents to make some. “Did everyone remember to bring caps?” asked Mama Xi. “It gets cold at the Asia-North America land bridge.” No one had. So the men folk took to shearing sheep and the women to knitting caps. And so it went. Before anyone knew it, ­­16,000 years had passed. The Bridge had long since been covered by rising water levels.

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5) Fortunately, Egg’s descendant, Egg DCXV–a brilliant man who really deserved to be remembered in history–made the Foos collect tons of krill. It was simplicity itself to trade this food to balleen whales in exchange for passage across the Bering Strait.

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6) In 1878, the Foos finally entered San Francisco. The locals remarked how young Egg DCLV looked. So, it was inevitable that Chef Egg’s first entry got called Egg Foo Young.

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7) Chjcken-egg historians claim that the Egg Foo DCLII joined the Cole-Younger that terrorized Missouri after the Civil War, heralding the formation of the Cole-Younger-Foo (CVF) gang. Naturally, lcocals referred to the Foo’s leader as Egg Foo Younger. In time, folks shortened his moniker to Egg Foo Young. Egg historians even aver that Egg Foo DCLII served this entree to the CVFs before train robberies. However, little evidence exists to support this preposterous, alternative claim.

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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.