Chop Suey

When I was a kid, this was the bomb. The rest of the country calls it goulash, but, in Maine, it's Chop Suey. I've been trying to make it well, off and on, for a while now. One problem is that mom made it wrong. I'm pretty sure she cooked elbow macaroni in a pot and ground beef in a pan and then combined them with a jar of Ragu and called it good. It was delicious and, it get better and better every time you reheat it. But, that's so very not how most New Englanders make it. It's supposed to have green bell peppers in it (yuck) and onion (Larry would say yuck)and, most important of all, the pasta is supposed to be cooked in the sauce so it absorbs all the flavors and, by absorbing the water, thickens the sauce.

I just made a batch and, rather than document what I did, I'll decrement what I plan to do next time.

• 2/3 stick butter
• 1 large yellow onion - diced
• 1 red bell pepper - diced (all of it, I know it looks like too much)
• 3 garlic cloves finely chopped
• 2 lbs 90/10 ground beef
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 1 15oz can tomato sauce
• 3 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes - I used “basil, garlic, oregano” version
• 4 tbsp tomato paste (from a tube, maybe a whole 6 oz can wouldn't be too much…)
• 1 lb dried elbow macaroni

1. melt the butter in a big pot or a large, deep pan
2. sauce the pepper and onion until the onions are translucent
3. add the garlic and saute another minute
4. stir in the garlic powder, onion powder and Italian seasoning
5. add the ground beef, stir and chop until it is all evenly browned
6. add the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes and tomato paste including all of the juice
7. add the macaroni and mix it all together
8. as soon as it starts to boil, turn the heat down so you don't burn it
9. it's done when the pasta is al dente - if I got the quantities right, you can keep it warm on the stove for a long time without overcooking it
10. it's so much better as leftovers

originally submitted by mike on Jan 12, 2023