Chop Suey & Old Friends

I was on facebook the other day and my friend Natalie mentioned that she loved Tongan chop Suey.

When we first arrived here in Tonga, my friend Lini bought over some dinner...It was Tongan chop suey and we all TOTALLY fell in love with it. It’s a family winner. It’s simple and I’m sure the recipe varies ALOT, but this is my version:
Ingredients:1 Tin of Corned Beef (approx 326g can)
Lots of finely chopped fresh Garlic (5-6 cloves...more the better!)
Lots of finely chopped fresh Ginger (about 3-4 tablespoons)
2 Carrots finely diced
1 Large Capsicum (Bell Pepper) finely diced
1 pkt Vermicelli rice noodles
Boiled water
Approx ½ Cup dark Soy Sauce
1 heaped teaspoon of Brown Sugar (optional but does make a difference)
Streamed Rice to serve

*Note – These are approximate measurements and by taste only. You might want to add more or less. This amount feeds about 4 Adults and a few kids :-)

Heat some oil in a pan

Sort through corned beef and remove any fat etc. Fry for a minute then add garlic and ginger

Once garlic and ginger are cooked add diced carrots


Then add diced capsicum


Mix well and slowly cook while you prepare the noodles


Pour some boiling water into a large bowl

Add vermicelli noodles


Stir, then start cutting the noodles into smaller strips


Drain noodles

Add noodles to corned beef mixture


Mix brown sugar in soy sauce

Add soy sauce mixture to noodles and corned beef


Mix well and cook for 5 mins on low heat
Serve on top of steamed rice.
(sorry I have no finished photo...we were too hungry and ate it straight away)

We were able to share this yummy meal with one of my old friends from school Pania and her brother Ben. They are here in Tonga on holiday... so it was fun to hang out with them and reminisce about old days as well as catch up on the last 10 years.