muckefuck | Revelations in the wake of a trip to Little India

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Revelations in the wake of a trip to Little India

Cashew chicken is a lot better when made with cashews. Who knew? I mean, it's not that monshu's previous walnut-based version sucked or anything, but the sauce simply didn't get all creamy and thick like it did this time. Where is the ready resource that will tell us about the culinary properties of our nuts?
I remember now why I don't allow myself to buy cookies from the Mughal Bakery on Maplewood more often: I ate a frickin' HALF POUND of them in eight hours today. The chand cookies are so ludicrously good with tea I don't know why I bother to drink it without them.
Speaking of Mughal Bakery, they apparently have the grand launch of a larger Devon Avenue location planned for January. I'm thrilled and worried at the same time. It would be great to see them get more custom and I'm curious to see if their confectionery could live up to the celestial standards of their baking, but they'd be competing directly with proven national champions like Sukhadia and I would sorely miss them if they went down.
On the subject of new eateries on Devon Avenue, a zabiha halal Chinese place has opened up around the corner from Mughal Bakery and I'm intrigued. In addition, the space vacated by Usmania when they moved into their swank new quarters at the east end of the strip has also been turned into a zabiha halal Chinese joint. I LOVE THIS CITY!!!

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Whenever I have a culinary question like that, my first stop is always Harold Mcgee's On Food and Cooking (http://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0684800012/). I don't know if your specific question would be answered in there though.

Having never heard of chand cookies before I googled them and guess whose LJ entry shows up as the first google response...?

Interesting question. I knew that cashews were actually seeds and not nuts, but this was illuminating. I suspect the cashews break down differently than the walnuts, perhaps rendering more fat into the dish. I also had no idea the cashew is related to poison ivy.

And one wonders how China is dealing with its restive Muslim population.

Thank you for introducing me to the words drupe, pseudofruit and peduncle. You've made my morning.

I suspected the difference in fat content was a large part of the answer, but the sauce seemed not only richer and creamier but also thicker. Ground almonds are often used to thicken sauces in Catalan cooking, but not walnuts. On the other hand, I think ground walnuts are often used this way in Persian and Caucasian cooking.

And one wonders how China is dealing with its restive Muslim population.

It's not so much their Muslims who are restive as it is their Uyghurs and they're dealing with them the way they would any substantial dissenting elements: Repression, repression, repression.

monshu refused to travel to Tibet as part of our China trip due to the outrages there, but I don't think the goings-on in Xinjiang are one iota less nasty--they're just less publicised. Moreover, with the current War on (Islamicist) Terror, the Chinese can repackage what they're doing there in a very US-policy-friendly way.

...while engaging in Great Game shenanigans in the 'stans, which might, at least in part, account for their Uyghur repression.

Did you ever read William Dalrymple's In Xanadu? It's a fun read, in the tradition of English writing about the back of Asia - ie, it's the callow ramblings of a Very Bright Young Thing who's reporting back from places where (English)Man has never trod before, but it has this chilling bit, when Will wanders off the path in midwestern China, that suggests a landscape of nuclear power experiments gone wrong, no reporting and the rule of local gang/warlords. I'm suspicious of Will as a source, but that episode is the only such moment in a book that you might think would be chock full of them. It reminded me forcefully of how little I know about China beyond Beijing.

I'd be curious to know what the life of Hokkien Muslims is like these days, too: whether there's any repression of the as a group in the south, or by the coast.

Depends: Have they protested anything?

We spent a lot of time in Muslim neighbourhoods during our trip to China and, if anything, the government was sprucing them up as showpieces. They really don't seem to have any trouble with religious believers provided they don't challenge government authority in any way. The urban Muslims, at any rate, seem to have had little cause to do so. Most of the unrest I've heard about is rural and non-sectarian. Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang, for instance, don't seem inclined to side with the Uyghur dissidents against a government which is actively promoting Han/Hui Chinese interests.

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