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Chop Suey

A stir‑fry of beef or veal with suet, bacon, onion, celery, and chestnuts, simmered in water until jelly‑like, served over dry rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Chop Suey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chop suey

  1. In a kettle, fry the suet and bacon over low heat until browned.

  2. Add the lean meat and stir briskly for 10 minutes until the meat is crisply browned.

  3. Pour in 4 cups of water and season with coarse sea salt.

  4. Add the diced onion, diced celery, and shredded chestnuts.

  5. Cook until all the liquid has evaporated, leaving a jelly-like moisture.

Serve

  1. Serve the chop suey over very dry cooked rice with clear Japan tea in tiny cups.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Celery + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,169 recipes

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

  4. Chestnut + ricetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Celery + chestnuttop 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

Lean beef or veal
Provides the main meat, which browns crisply and gives the dish its savory body.
Suet
Adds fat for frying, carrying flavor and helping the meat brown.
Bacon
Renders fat and smoky flavor into the pan for frying the meat.
Spanish onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it cooks down into the liquid.
Celery
Contributes crisp texture and a fresh, aromatic savory note.
Sweet chestnuts
Adds starchy body and a mildly sweet, nutty flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Cook until all the liquid has evaporated. Reducing the water until only a jelly-like moisture remains concentrates the flavors and glazes the meat and vegetables. Stopping early leaves the dish watery, while over-reducing can scorch the sugars and fats left in the pan.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, onion, celery, rice):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Black-eyed peafits better
  4. Chestnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, onion, celery, rice. 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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