Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Chop Suey
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean the chicken and cut the meat into strips 1.5 inches long and 0.5 inches wide.
Slice the onion thinly.
Soak the mushrooms in water for 10 minutes and remove the stems.
Cut the celery into small pieces.
Wash and slice the Chinese potatoes.
Cook and stew
In a frying pan, heat some fat and lightly fry the chicken without letting it harden.
Add the sliced onions and cook for 5 minutes.
Add the mushrooms and enough Chinese sauce to brown the ingredients.
Pour in enough water to almost cover the mixture and simmer for 20 minutes.
Add the celery and potatoes and stew for an additional 15 minutes.
Thicken the sauce with a mixture of flour and water until smooth.
Serve
Serve with boiled rice.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,023 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,172 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).
-
Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,047 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,518 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Chicken + potatotop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,756 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Chicken
- Provides the main protein, and light frying keeps its meat tender rather than hard.
- Onion
- Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens and cooks into the sauce.
- Mushrooms
- Add earthy flavour and a soft, chewy texture to the stew.
- Chinese potatoes
- Add starch and body, becoming tender as they stew in the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as its starch swells with liquid when heated.
The step that matters
Lightly frying the chicken. Chicken cooked over high heat for too long toughens as its proteins tighten and dry out. Frying it briefly, before the liquid is added, keeps the meat tender through the long simmer that follows.
Swap the celery
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, onion, mushroom, potato, sauce, flour):
- Garlicfits better
- Thymefits better
- Capersfits better
- Celerythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, onion, mushroom, potato, sauce, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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