Complex sentence: This dish is rare in that it is one of the few Chinese-American dishes to maintain the principle of "fan-ts'ai" or the division between "fan", grains and other starch foods, and "ts'ai", vegetable and meat dishes.
Split into simpler sentences: This dish is rare in that it is one of few Chinese-American dishes to maintain the principle of "fan-ts'ai". The basis of this principle is the division between "fan", grains and other starch foods, and "ts'ai", vegetable and meat dishes.