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Yankee Chop Suey

A hearty stew of chicken, pork, bacon, beans, corn, and mushrooms flavored with Worcestershire sauce and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,417 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Yankee Chop Suey

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meat

  1. Boil the chicken, pork, and bacon until tender.

  2. Remove the bones and cut the meat into small pieces.

Simmer and season

  1. Add the string beans, corn, and mushrooms to the pot.

  2. Boil slowly for 1 hour.

  3. Season with Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and paprika to taste.

  4. If the mixture is too thin, add a little flour to thicken.

Serve

  1. Serve the chop suey with boiled rice.

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. Chicken + porktop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,417 recipes

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

  2. Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

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

  4. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

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

  5. Beans + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together411 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Provides the main meat and savory broth as it simmers and tenderizes.
Pork chops
Adds richer meat flavor and tender pieces after long simmering.
Bacon
Contributes smoky fat that flavors the broth and the rest of the pot.
String beans
Add vegetable bulk and a mild green texture to the stew.
Dried mushrooms
Add earthy, savory depth to the mixture.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 1 hour. A gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and lets flavors blend, while a hard boil can toughen meat and break up the vegetables.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Peanutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, pork, corn, mushroom, sauce, pepper, 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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