Egg Foo Young

This is one of those hybrid dishes adapted to the American palate so often found in American-Chinese cuisine. While not normally a "breakfast food" per se, it's got all the makings of a fine breakfast dish so why not?

Egg Foo Young might have been influenced by the Western or Denver Omelet or vice versa. Chinese American restaurants in St. Louis, Missouri serve a dish called a St. Paul sandwich which consists of an Egg Foo Young patty, with mayo, pickles and lettuce between slices of American white bread. Quite like the Denver Sandwich which has been attributed to either pioneer women hoping to cover up the taste of eggs gone bad on the hot trail with plenty of onions...

"Western sandwich. The American Heritage Cookbook and Illustrated History of American Eating and Drinking (1964) fixed the origin of this sandwich in Westward Ho days when pioneer women masked the flavor of over-the-hill eggs by mixing them in plenty of onions. Of course those frontier women lacked some of the principal ingredients of the classic Western Sandwich--green and/or red bell peppers. Other food historians believe the sandwich may have originated with chuckwagon cooks, then been refined and embellished over the years. Whatever its origins, the Western Sandwich seems not to have made it into the pages of cookbooks--or onto the menus of restaurants--until well into the twentieth century. In the West, it's often called a "Denver."

---The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century, Jean Anderson [Clarkson Potter:New York] 1997 (p. 349)

...or a Chinese cook feeding a hungry cowboy.

"Other Chinese were cooks for the work gangs, and one of these, I am willing to believe, invented the sandwich that is called a "western" in the states east of the Mississippi and a "Denver" in most of the rest of the country. When a hungry cowboy asked for a sandwich between meals, the story goes, the Chinese cook prepared eggs foo yung by making the traditional Oriental omelet from meats and vegetables at had--in this case the green pepper that was grown by early Spanish in the West, along with onions and some chopped ham. Put between slices of bread, this hasty Chinese creation became the prototype of one of the most American of all sandwiches."

---American Food: The Gastronomic Story, Evan Jones, 2nd edition [Vintage:New York] 1981 (p. 166)

Ingredients and preparations for Egg Foo Young vary. Practically any meat can be used, from ham to beef to seafood. For this version I chose shrimp.

6 pre-cooked shrimp, diced
1 green onion, diced
1/4 cup cabbage, shredded
2 water chestnuts, sliced
4 eggs, beaten
2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp vegetable oil

Sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp soy
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp mirin

Mix the eggs, veggies and meat in a bowl. Heat a tiny amount of the vegetable oil in a medium non-stick skillet on medium low heat. Measure out about a 1/4 cup of the mixture at a time (enough batter for a 3-4 inch omelet). When you add the mixture to the skillet, push in the eggs that runs into omelet to form a rough circle. Cook until the egg on top begins to set and the bottom is very lightly browning and turn over gently with a spatula. Cook on the other side until lightly browned. Place finished egg foo young patties in the oven, on an oven-safe plate, on warm, while you cook the rest of the mixture.

When all the patties are finished, add the sauce ingredients to a sauce pan and reduce till thickened.

Serve the warm patties family style with the sauce on the side.

Serves 2