14. 芽菜 (yá cài) – Sichuan Pickled Mustard Tops
In No 7 of my numbered posts above, I covered Zhacai, the Sichuanese root of a type of mustard plant. You didn’t think we were going to be ignoring the stems and leafy tops, did you? These are also salt cured, but in a more pungent manner. First they are dried, then salted and left to ferment with spices for months. Yibin city (宜宾市 - yí bīn shì) in south-eastern Sichuan is considered to produce the best.
Mustard tops drying in the sun
As ever, Fuchsia Dunlop's The Food of Sichuan (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) has a number of recipes for using the pickle.
Sichuan Yacai
A very similar pickle, made in almost the exact way from the same ingredients, is known as 雪菜 (xuě cài - literally 'snow vegetable'). They may look somewhat different, but taste the same.
Warning: Outside Sichuan, in other parts of China and among much of the diaspora, 芽菜 (yá cài) is taken to mean ‘bean sprouts’; something Ms. Dunlop doesn't mention. It is safer to specify 四川芽菜 (sì chuān yá cài) for the pickle. If you have to specify bean sprouts, ask for 豆芽菜 (dòu yá cài) or just 豆芽 (dòu yá).
