Decades and decades before Happy Meals and combo specials, Chinese restaurants offered all-in-one family-style meals. A 1930s, Depression Era menu from Far East Cafe in downtown Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo district features seven family-style dinners ranging from 75 cents to $1.40 per person. Ahh…the good old days.
There were more family-style dinners at the Great Wall Restaurant in West Covina, beginning in the mid-1950s.
The dishes include the basics: chow mein, chop suey, fried rice and fried shrimp. Also, there was another fixture on the Chinese restaurant menu: egg foo young. Egg foo young was essentially a Chinese omelette. Like other Chinese dishes, it was Americanized. The Chinese restaurant version of egg foo young was often deep fried or cooked almost like a pancake and covered with gravy. For close to half a century, it was fairly popular. Then, beginning in the late 1970s, as more authentic Chinese dishes pushed their way onto restaurant menus, chop suey and egg foo young faded into obscurity.
So it’s interesting to see that egg foo young remains quite popular – at least online. You can find countless recipes for egg foo young on YouTube. Here, we showcase two versions. Emily Wong, inspired by her grandmother, Barbara Wong, demonstrates how to cook her recipes. It’s not the deep-fried version found at some Chinese restaurants. Emily’s is a much healthier omelette-style egg foo young. As an added treat, Emily narrates her video recipe in Gom Benn’s Toisan dialect, accompanied by English subtitles for those not as fluent as Emily.
The other recipe comes from Lee Wong, who was inspired by his father, Bing K. Wong, who operated the Kun Ming Kitchen takeout restaurant in Covina. It’s more pancake-like and served with gravy.
Emily Wong’s Egg Foo Young Recipe
Ingredients: Diced green onion, celery, carrots and mushrooms; and cut shrimp and bean sprouts.
How to Cook
- To a heated, slightly oiled cooking pan, add shrimp and mushrooms, plus a tablespoon of water.
- Once the shrimp and mushrooms are cooked, add the carrots. And add a tablespoon of soy sauce.
- Add the celery.
- When most of the ingredients are cooked add the bean sprouts.
- Add another tablespoon of soy sauce, and a half teaspoon of sesame oil.
- Add a sprinkle of salt, and a sprinkle of pepper.
- Once everything is cooked, take everything out of the pot and place into a bowl.
- In another bowl, crack five eggs and mix.
- Into a hot, lightly oiled pan, pour the eggs.
- As the eggs are cooking, add the mixture of bean sprouts, carrots, celery, mushrooms and shrimp.
- Wait approximately 5 minutes
- Once the eggs are cooked, fold over.
- That’s it. Enjoy your egg foo young.
Lee Wong’s Egg Foo Young Recipe
Ingredients: Bean sprouts, flour and diced BBQ pork. That’s all.
How to Cook:
- Chop up half a bag of bean sprouts into shorter pieces.
- To the bean sprouts, add half a cup of flour, the BBQ and six eggs.
- Season with dash of salt and pepper.
- Mix.
- Cook for about 5 minutes (or until golden brown) on a lightly oiled griddle, like pancakes. Flip occasionally. Makes about six egg foo young.
- For the gravy, heat up chicken or beef broth, add oyster sauce, soy sauce and corn starch, stirring occasionally until thick.
- That’s it. Enjoy.
