Suānjiāngdòu néng gěi chǎofàn zēngtiān yī zhǒng tèbié de suānwèi.
Pickled long beans add a special tang to fried rice.
Tips
usage
jiāng is a bound form - it appears only in 豇豆 and its derivatives. The bean itself (Vigna unguiculata, also called cowpea or yard-long bean) is a Chinese kitchen staple, especially in Sichuan and Hunan cooking. Common compounds: 酸豇豆 (pickled / sour long beans, a famous Sichuan condiment), 干煸豇豆 (dry-fried long beans). The pods routinely grow 30-60cm long, hence the English name 'yard-long.'
memory
Left 豆 (bean) + right 工 (work, supplying the sound jiāng via the Old Chinese reading kong). One of the simplest phono-semantic legume names: bean-radical + sound-marker, no semantic puzzle.
Right phonetic 工 - the gōng to jiāng shift is regular for an old velar initial. The same phonetic anchors 江 (river), 杠 (pole), 扛 (carry on shoulder), 缸 (vat) - a tight phonetic family.
