Chop Suey Burrito Man

Jon Hom may be the only person who regularly tops chow mein with Texas-style chili and sprinkles bean sprouts, water chestnuts and ginkgo nuts into menudo.

Hom’s wild style of cross-cultural eating fits with his role as author of “Renegade Wok,” a book that is as iconoclastic as its title. Just look at the photograph on the cover. There, in a gleaming wok, sits a birthday cake composed of crisp chow mein noodles layered with chop suey and topped with radish flowers, carrot curls and a candle.

Crazy? You might think so, especially after skimming through pages that offer horoscopes, a wok crossword puzzle and even a wok song with lyrics by Hom (“Add the Veggies, large to small--stir and fry, cha-cha cha”).

This tongue-in-cheek approach is only wonton-skin deep, however. Delve more deeply into “Renegade Wok,” which Hom published himself, and you find the solid basics of wok cookery along with ideas that take stir-frying to its outer limits. Rather than recipes, the book offers guidance. “I want to teach beginners how to cook,” says Hom, “and turn them loose to create new menus.”

Neither chef nor cooking instructor, Hom is a retired industrial engineer who lives in San Diego. More to the point, he is the son-in-law of L.A. Chinatown’s legendary Mama Quon. Quon cooked at the Grand Star restaurant until the age of 96, when she fell in the kitchen and fractured her hip. Now 98, she lives in a nursing home.

Hom, a widower, was married to daughter No. 6. (Mama Quon had nine children, and family custom was to identify each by number.) “Mama Quon was quite a figure in the restaurant,” says Hom. “She has inspired me through the years.”

In the book, he describes how to make the herbal wild duck soup that was one of Quon’s specialties. The last page displays the Golden Wok award that Hom presented to his mother-in-law as a “wok pioneer for over 50 years.” The document is also signed by Wally and Frank Quon, sons Nos. 8 and 9. They still run Grand Star, though the kitchen is closed while the Quons redesign the menu and seek a new chef. (The popular bar remains open.)

Unable to demonstrate his wok technique to us on his home ground, Hom drove down Broadway to United Foods Co., a deli, meat and seafood market. There, in a giant wok behind the deli counter, he tossed and turned some of the 20 pounds of chow mein that he had ordered for a book party at Grand Star that night. It would, of course, be topped with chili.

Other Hom innovations include chop suey burritos, fried rice made with diced deli meats and Cantonese tomato beef with sun-dried tomatoes. “How many sun-dried tomatoes are there in [Asian] cooking? Not many,” he says wryly. But Hom sets limits to innovation. “Don’t change everything just for the sake of change,” he says. “Think of taste.”

Hom even gets into pizza, replacing pepperoni with Chinese sausage and substituting salt fish for anchovies and Asian black mushrooms for button mushrooms.

His seasonal specialties include turkey jook for the day after Thanksgiving. Jook is Chinese rice porridge, in this case made with turkey stock produced from the carcass. The procedure is to boil long-grain rice in the stock until the mixture reaches gravy consistency. The porridge, along with any leftover turkey meat, is ladled into large soup bowls and served with an assortment of condiments, such as peanuts, cilantro, green onions, pickled cabbage, water chestnuts, bean sprouts, sesame oil, soy sauce and white pepper.

For Sunday breakfast, he suggests “flip jacks” (pancakes) mixed with a stir-fry of meat, Chinese turnips and fermented black beans. For a party dessert, he recommends hot apple pie topped with ginger ice cream, which in turn is topped with sweetened yogurt (any flavor), dark chocolate bits, chopped nuts and powdered ginseng.

A chart in the book tells how to turn party leftovers, or the remainder of a Chinese deli meal, into new dishes. Barbecued pork can be stir-fried with a Chinese green vegetable, topped with an egg sunny-side up and served on rice. Then it becomes Hawaiian Rice with Volcano. “The people in Hawaii love that,” Hom says.

* Hom’s book costs $12.95 plus $3.05 shipping and handling. Make checks payable to Jon Hom-Renegade Wok and send to Renegade Wok, 1111 Ft. Stockton Drive, Suite H, San Diego, CA 92103. Allow three to four weeks for delivery.