Just ahead of the Chinese New Year, the folks at Ask.com have released some search rankings that focus on which Chinese take-out dishes web users are searching for on the cusp of the Year of the Rat. Think you know what they are?

Ask.com's Top Ten Chinese Take-Out Dishes

I've taken the liberty here of making links to Ask.com's results, if you're curious what comes up.

1. Fried Rice
2. Egg Roll
3. Chicken Chow Mein
4. Orange Chicken
5. Chop Suey
6. Spring Roll
7. Spare Ribs
8. Kung Po Chicken
9. Beef Lo Mein
10. General Tso's Chicken

According to the Ask.com representative I talked to, the top dog, fried rice, gets more than twice the number of queries than runner-up egg roll.

I was surprised, since fried rice seems like such an afterthought dish at take-out places. But then I thought about it for a moment. Fried rice is a sort of take-out comfort food, so it's go that going for it. And it lends itself well to leftovers of all means, so home cooks looking to extend a meal might be looking up recipes for it. I know I've done any number of fried rice recipe searches in my time.

I'm glad the General bothered to show up. But No. 10? Come on, people! How can you love chop suey more than Tso's?

Related

Fuchsia Dunlop's General Tso's Chicken Video
Fuchsia Dunlop's General Tso's Chicken Recipe
The History of General Tso's Chicken

Photograph from iStockphoto.com