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Pork Chop Suey

Stir‑fry of marinated pork with vegetables and sauce.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and water chestnut work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 151 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

The recipe

Time10–15 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: wheat, soy, shellfish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • Pork Marinade
  • Sauce
  • Other

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pork into thin strips. Add seasonings to pork, adding the cornstarch last. Marinate the pork for 10–15 minutes.

  2. While the pork is marinating, prepare the vegetables and sauce. For the sauce, whisk together the sauce ingredients and set aside.

  3. For the vegetables, cut the bamboo shoots into thin strips.

  4. Slice the mushrooms and water chestnuts. Cut the green pepper in half, remove the seeds and slice diagonally.

  5. For the bok choy, separate each stalk and leaves. Cut the stalk diagonally and cut the leaves across.

  6. Cut the celery diagonally. Cut the onion in half, peel, and slice thinly.

  7. Place the vegetables on a large tray, keeping each group separate (including the bok choy stalks and leaves), and set aside.

Stir-fry and serve

  1. Heat the wok and add oil. When the oil is ready, add the pork. Stir-fry the pork until the redness is gone. Remove and set aside.

  2. Reheat the wok and add more oil. When the oil is ready, stir-fry each of the vegetables. The order doesn't matter, but you can stir-fry the onions and celery together and the green pepper and snow peas together. When cooking the bok choy, add the stalk first. Add salt to taste as desired while stir-frying each group of vegetables. Add water and cover the wok while cooking bok choy, as it doesn't contain much moisture.

  3. Reheat the wok and add oil. Give the sauce a quick re-stir. Add and combine all the cooked ingredients in the wok. Make a "well" in the center and gradually add the sauce, stirring to thicken. Once it has boiled, remove the chop suey from the stove. Serve hot.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Pork + water chestnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together151 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Bamboo shoots + water chestnuttop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pork + chickentop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Chicken + mushroomtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together4,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  5. Pork + mushroomtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,840 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Pork
Provides the main protein; thin strips cook quickly and stay tender when not overcooked.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce and coats the pork, giving a glossy, silky texture.
Oyster sauce
Adds savory depth and umami to the marinade and sauce.
Bok choy
Provides crisp-tender texture and fresh vegetable body to the stir-fry.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a tender, meaty bite that absorbs the sauce.
Water chestnuts
Stay crisp when cooked briefly, adding a juicy crunch.

The step that matters

Stir-fry the pork until the redness is gone, then set it aside. Pork must be cooked through for safety, but overcooking makes thin strips dry and tough. Removing it early and recombining at the end keeps it tender.

Flavor stand-ins for the broccoli

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sauce, oyster, pepper, chicken, bamboo shoots, mushroom):

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Potatobetter flavor fit
  3. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  4. Broccolithe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sauce, oyster, pepper, chicken, bamboo shoots, mushroom. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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