''Tangsuyuk'' () is a Korean Chinese meat dish with sweet and sour sauce. It can be made with either pork or beef.

History and etymology

''Tangsuyuk'' is a dish that was first made by Chinese merchants in the port city of

Incheon Incheon (; ; or Inch'ŏn; literally "kind river"), formerly Jemulpo or Chemulp'o (제물포) until the period after 1910, officially the Incheon Metropolitan City (인천광역시, 仁川廣域市), is a city located in northwestern South Kore ...

, where the majority of the ethnic Chinese population in contemporary South Korea live. It is derived from the Shandong-style dish '' tángcùròu'' (), as Chinese immigrants in Korea, including those that had first migrated to Northeastern China, mostly had Shandong ancestry. Although the Chinese characters meaning "

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

" (), " vinegar" (), and "

meat Meat is animal flesh that is eaten as food. Humans have hunted, farmed, and scavenged animals for meat since prehistoric times. The establishment of settlements in the Neolithic Revolution allowed the domestication of animals such as chic ...

" () are pronounced ''dang'', ''cho'', and ''yuk'' in Korean, the dish is called ''tangsuyuk'', not ''dangchoyuk'', because the word ''tangsu'' derived from the transliteration of Chinese pronunciation ''tángcù'' , with the

affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...

''c'' in the second syllable weakened into fricative ''s'' . The third syllable ''ròu'' () was not transliterated, as Sino-Korean word ''yuk'' () meaning "meat" was also commonly used in Korean dish names. As the word ''tangsuyuk'' is the combination of transliterated loanword ''tangsu'' and Sino-Korean ''yuk'', it was not a Sino-Korean vocabulary that could be written in hanja. However, Koreans back-formed the second syllable with hanja ''su'' (), meaning "water", perhaps because the sauce was considered soupy.

Preparation

Bite-size pieces of pork or beef loin are coated with batter, usually made by soaking a mixture of potato or

sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Convolvulus, bindweed or morning glory family (biology), family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a r ...

starch and

corn starch Corn starch, maize starch, or cornflour (British English) is the starch derived from corn (maize) grain. The starch is obtained from the endosperm of the kernel. Corn starch is a common food ingredient, often used to thicken sauces or sou ...

in water for several hours and draining the excess water.

Glutinous rice flour Domestication syndrome refers to two sets of phenotypic traits that are common to either domesticated animals, or domesticated plants. These traits were identified by Charles Darwin in '' The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. ...

may also be used.

Egg white Egg white is the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. In chickens it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms arou ...

cooking oil Cooking oil is plant, animal, or synthetic liquid fat used in frying, baking, and other types of cooking. It is also used in food preparation and flavoring not involving heat, such as salad dressings and bread dips, and may be called edible oil. ...

is added to the batter to change its consistency. Similarly to other Korean deep fried dishes, battered ''tangsuyuk'' meat is double-fried. ''Tangsuyuk'' is served with sweet and sour sauce, which is typically made by boiling vinegar,

and water, with variety of fruits and vegetables like

carrot The carrot ('' Daucus carota'' subsp. ''sativus'') is a root vegetable, typically orange in color, though purple, black, red, white, and yellow cultivars exist, all of which are domesticated forms of the wild carrot, ''Daucus carota'', nat ...

cucumber Cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the Cucurbitaceae family that bears usually cylindrical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.onion An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the oni ...

, water chestnut, wood ear mushroom and

pineapple The pineapple (''Ananas comosus'') is a tropical plant with an edible fruit; it is the most economically significant plant in the family Bromeliaceae. The pineapple is indigenous to South America, where it has been cultivated for many centurie ...

. Starch slurry is used to thicken the sauce.

Gallery

Beoseot-tangsuyuk.jpg, ''Beoseot-tangsuyuk'', a vegan/vegetarian ''tangsuyuk'' dish using shiitake mushroom as a meat substitute

References

{{portalbar, Food, Korea Deep fried foods Korean Chinese cuisine Korean beef dishes Korean pork dishes

History and etymology

Preparation

Gallery

See also

References