Diced Chicken with Preserved Yibin Suimiyacai 雞米芽菜

It might not be as well-known to the western world, but Yibin yacai or suimiyacai is a popular preserved mustard greens in China. Yibin is a prefecture-level city in Sichuan, China. Yacai is the name of the preserved veggies, and suimiyacai simply means the already rinsed and chopped version.

The vegetable needs to go through many steps such as drying, flavoring, and preserving to become a useful flavor booster in many Chinese dishes. You can use it in soup, stir-fry, or steamed meat to add more depth and flavor profile. And about my recipe this time, it's used in diced chicken stir-fry, also one of the classics in Sichuan cuisine, but a bit modification to simplify the process for the common households. 

Diced chicken with preserved Yibin suimiyacai 雞米芽菜 - 

Ingredients?

• 4 tablespoons Yibin suimiyacai
• 440 grams chicken breast
• 100 grams red chilies (the long and not super spicy kind)
• 100 grams green chilies (I also used the long and no so spicy kind)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon scraped and chopped ginger
• 2 tablespoons light-tasting cooking oil

Marinade - 

• 1 tablespoon aged Shaoxing rice wine
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon corn starch 

How?

Destem and chop both the red and green chilies. Peel and chop the garlic cloves. Scrape and finely chop the ginger, we'll need about 1 teaspoon of prepped ginger for this recipe.

Thinly sliced the chicken crosswise, then slice to strips, then finally slice to little pieces, like smaller diced chicken. If you follow the classic way of doing it, the chicken needs to cut to the size of rice grains, which explains the Chinese name for this dish 雞米, meaning chicken rice. 雞 means chicken and 米 means rice. Nope, that's a bit too much work for a common housewife, so I settled for chunkier size.

Transfer the chicken to a bowl and add in all the ingredients listed under the "marinade" section. Give it a gentle massage so that the seasonings can fully bond with the meat. Let it marinate for about 10 minutes.

Bring out a pan and drizzle 2 tablespoons of light-tasting cooking oil. Also add in chopped garlic and ginger. Switch to medium heat and cook till aromatic but not burnt.

Add in the chicken and stir-fry till separated. Further stir-fry the meat till dries out a little bit.

Add in suimiyacai, stir-fry till evenly distributed.

Add in all the chilies and stir-fry for 2 more minutes. Taste and adjust the seasonings if needed. Once checked, plate and serve. 

I like to enjoy this dish with steamed rice, but using it as base for dry noodles is equally appetizing. 

So for the pack of Yibin suimiyacai, I've used about half of it for this recipe. The rest was stored in an airtight container in the fridge. The remaining Yibin suimiyacau was actually added to fried rice about a week later. The amount I used won't heavily alter the flavor of the fried rice, but more so enhance the savory note in the end. Perhaps you can do the same if there're any leftover preserved mustard greens too.