''Moo goo gai pan'' (;

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding ar ...

: ) is the

Americanized Americanization or Americanisation (see spelling differences) is the influence of American culture and business on other countries outside the United States of America, including their media, cuisine, business practices, popular culture, tec ...

version of a

dish – chicken with mushroom in oyster sauce (), which can be a stir-fry dish or a dish made in a claypot. The Chinese-American version is a simple

stir-fried Stir frying () is a cooking technique in which ingredients are fried in a small amount of very hot oil while being stirred or tossed in a wok. The technique originated in China and in recent centuries has spread into other parts of Asia and t ...

dish with thin sliced

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated junglefowl species, with attributes of wild species such as the grey and the Ceylon junglefowl that are originally from Southeastern Asia. Rooster or cock is a term for an adu ...

, white button mushrooms, and other vegetables. The word means thin slices, referring to the way the chicken is cut. Popular vegetable additions include

bok choy Bok choy (American English, Canadian English, and Australian English), pak choi (British English) or pok choi (''Brassica rapa'' subsp. ''chinensis'') is a type of Chinese cabbage, used as food. ''Chinensis'' varieties do not form heads and have ...

snow pea The snow pea is an edible-pod pea with flat pods and thin pod walls. It is eaten whole, with both the seeds and the pod, while still unripened. Names The common name snow pea seems to be a misnomer as the planting season of this pea is no ea ...

bamboo shoot Bamboo shoots or bamboo sprouts are the edible shoots (new bamboo culms that come out of the ground) of many bamboo species including ''Bambusa vulgaris'' and ''Phyllostachys edulis''. They are used as vegetables in numerous Asian dishes and ...

s, shiitake mushrooms, water chestnuts, carrots, and/or

Chinese cabbage Chinese cabbage (''Brassica rapa'', subspecies ''pekinensis'' and ''chinensis'') can refer to two cultivar groups of leaf vegetables often used in Chinese cuisine: the Pekinensis Group (napa cabbage) and the Chinensis Group (bok choy). These ...

(Napa cabbage).

Etymology

The name comes from the Cantonese names of the ingredients (note that tone marks here do not match Mandarin tones):. *''moo goo'' (; ): '

button mushroom ''Agaricus bisporus'' is an edible basidiomycete mushroom native to grasslands in Eurasia and North America. It has two color states while immature – white and brown – both of which have various names, with additional names for the mature ...

s' *''gai'' (; ): 'chicken' *''pan'' (; ): 'slices'

References

{{Chicken dishes, state=collapsed American Chinese chicken dishes Cantonese words and phrases

Etymology

See also

References