Tangsuyuk (Korean: 탕수육) is a Korean Chinese meat dish with sweet and sour sauce. It can be made with either pork or beef.^[3][4][5]

Tangsuyuk is a dish that was first made by Chinese merchants in the port city of Incheon, where the majority of the ethnic Chinese population in contemporary South Korea live. It is derived from the Shandong-style sweet and sour pork, as Chinese immigrants in Korea, including those that had first migrated to Northeastern China (which is known for Guōbāoròu, a similar sweet and sour pork dish), mostly had Shandong ancestry.^[1]

Although the Chinese characters meaning "sugar" (糖), "vinegar" (醋), and "meat" (肉) in the original Chinese name "糖醋肉 (pronounced tángcù ròu in Chinese)" 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 [tʰǎŋ.tsʰû], with the affricate c [tsʰ] in the second syllable weakened into fricative s [s].^[6] Transliterated loanwords like tangsu do not comprise Sino-Korean vocabulary and do not carry hanja.

The third syllable ròu (肉) was not transliterated, as Sino-Korean word yuk (육; 肉) meaning "meat" was also commonly used in Korean dish names.^[6]

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 (수; 水), meaning "water", perhaps because the sauce was considered soupy.^[3]

Bite-size pieces of pork or beef loin are coated with batter, usually made by soaking a mixture of potato or sweet potato starch and corn starch in water for several hours and draining the excess water. Glutinous rice flour may also be used. Egg white or cooking oil is added to the batter to change its consistency. Similarly to other Korean deep fried dishes, battered tangsuyuk meat is double-fried.^[7][8]

Tangsuyuk is served with sweet and sour sauce, which is typically made by boiling vinegar, sugar and water, with variety of fruits and vegetables like carrot, cucumber, onion, water chestnut, wood ear mushroom and pineapple. Starch slurry is used to thicken the sauce.^[7]

There is debate on whether one should pour the sauce directly onto tangsuyuk or individually dip each piece. The dippers (찍먹파), such as Anh Sung-jae, argue such practice preserves the crunchy texture,^[9] while the pourers (부먹파) argue it enhances flavor.^[10] Tangsuyuk was originally served with the sauce poured. However, the advent of food delivery services necessitated the sauce to be packaged separately to prevent the tangsuyuk from becoming soggy, which had the additional benefit of accommodating both preferences.^[11][10]

• 
  Beoseot-tangsuyuk, a vegan/vegetarian tangsuyuk dish using shiitake mushroom as a meat substitute

• Guōbāoròu