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Chop Suey

A stir‑fry of veal, tongue, bacon, chestnuts, onions, celery, potatoes, and flour, simmered in water and served over rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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

Brown the base

  1. In a large iron kettle, combine the fat, suet, and bacon. Fry until golden brown, stirring often.

  2. Add the shredded chestnuts, diced onions, celery, and potato strips. Fry until the vegetables are golden brown.

Make the stew

  1. Stir in the minced veal and tongue, cooking for 5 minutes. Season with salt and white pepper.

  2. Sift the flour over the mixture, stirring until smooth and rich brown.

  3. Add the water and let it simmer slowly for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with bowls of cooked rice, prepared until dry and flaky.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Chestnut + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Celery + potatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chestnut + celerytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meaty body and chew of the stew.
Bacon
Renders fat and adds smoky, savory flavor to the base.
Suet
Adds rich fat that carries flavor and gives a richer mouthfeel.
Flour
Browns in the hot fat and thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet and golden, building aroma in the base.
Potatoes
Hold their shape in the simmer and add starch that gives body.

The step that matters

Sifting and stirring the flour. Flour dropped into hot fat clumps easily if not sifted and stirred constantly. Cooking it until rich brown develops color and flavor, and it thickens the liquid evenly once water is added.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, chestnut, meat, onion, celery, potato, flour):

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, chestnut, meat, onion, celery, potato, 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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