In Sichuan, Suan Cai Yu is a family favorite loved by many many home cooks (pretty sure everyone loves it!). The soup is made with various kinds of pickled veggies such as pickled mustard greens, pickled chili peppers, pickled ginger etc. Fish is cut into thin slices and marinated in a potato starch based marinate. The soup ends up being golden (yellow and green from the pickled mustard greens) and has a salty and sour flavor. It is usually topped with spice infused hot oil, a common technique in Sichuan cooking.

Ingredients:

1lb tilapia (or Swai, any fish that is tender after cooked should work)

2 green onion (white, green separate)

2 garlic cloves

1 piece ginger

1 pack pickled mustard green

2 tbsp red sichuan pickled pepper

5 tbsp cooking oil (2 tbsp for cooking, 3 tbsp for finishing)

1 red chili (or Thai chili) for topping

Marinate

1 tbsp shaoxing wine

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg white

1 tbsp potato starch

Soup

3 cup stock

1.5 tsp salt

1/4 tsp white pepper powder

Spice infused oil

3 tbsp cooking oil

2 tbsp Dry chili (cut and deseed)

2 bunches fresh Sichuan peppercorn

Instructions:

How to prepare the fish slices: find the tail part of the fish filet, start slicing at an angle. Each slice should be a little more than 1/4 inch thick. Don’t worry if you are not getting the perfect slices in the beginning. Fish will still taste amazing! 🙂
Place the fish in a bowl, marinate with salt, Shaoxing wine, potato starch, and one egg white. Mix well.
How to prepare pickled mustard greens: cut open the package and take out the pickled mustard greens. Chop into slices. Wash with water. This helps remove excess salt and unwanted flavor from the mustard greens. Drain and squeeze out any residual water. If you have other pickled veggies such as pickled red chili, cut at an angle and place with the pickled mustard greens.
How to prepare the aromatics for Suan Cai Yu: slice garlic and ginger. Smack the white part of the green onion, then chop into 1 inch slices. Finely chop the green part of the onion separately (this will be used for topping). Slice red chili at an angle (this will be used for topping).
Cut dry chilies with a pair of scissors. This will release the seeds from the chilies. Separate the seeds, and keep the skin only. Take out some fresh green Sichuan peppercorn (use dry green Sichuan peppercorn to substitute). These can be found at the frozen section of Chinese grocery stores. Set aside with the dry chilies. Dry chilies and Sichuan peppercorn will be used for infused hot oil later.
Start the fire and add 2 tbsp cooking oil to the pan. Drop in sliced garlic, ginger and white part of green onion. Fry until slightly brown.
Add in pickled veggies. Stir fry immediately until fragrant.
Add in 3 cups of stock. You can use any kind of stock or use boiling water to substitute. Season with salt and white pepper powder.
When the soup boils, reduce heat to medium low, add in the fish slices one by one. Gently lay the fish slices on the top so they don’t clump together. You can stir the soup a little. Fish will be ready in 1-2 minutes after the soup boils. Don’t over cook the fish slices as they can break easily.
Use a large soup spoon to scoop out the fish and pickled veggies in a serving bowl. Then transfer over all the rest of the soup.
Heat up 3 tbsp of cooking oil. Pour over the dry chilis and fresh Sichuan peppercorn. After the sizzling, immediately pour the oil and spices on top of the fish soup.
Garnish with chopped green onion and red chili.

Watch the Full Video Instruction: