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.

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.

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.