شىنجاڭ‎ Uyghur Irish Stew

Now this one…this one’s going to be a search engine disaster in the making. It may also be the one that gets me pushed over the proverbial edge of the Great Firewall. Sorry.

This stew is technically a basic Irish stew, though lacking in lamb and Guinness. I did, however, have some leathery supermarket Chinese beef and a bottle of  Sinkiang stout from the far, far west of China, from what’s known on maps as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (or شىنجاڭ ئۇيغۇر ئاپتونوم رايونى or Shinjang Uyghur Aptonom Rayoni or 新疆维吾尔自治区).  I made the stew yesterday, along with the spicy roasted pumpkin soup. It was a lovely autumnal dinner.

After nearly three years in China, with my Mandarin abilities being freakishly stunted in spite of repeated efforts at learning (I think I might be tone deaf), I occasionally find myself secretly wishing we could have moved to, say, Kashgar. Because, absurd as it may sound, at least I’d be able to communicate half-way intelligently there. My 6 years in Turkey have finally proven to be of some use in retrospect: I can understand elementary Uyghur with pretty much no effort.

About a year ago, I downloaded a Teach Yourself Uyghur pdf textbook (as one does) from a university website and realized after only 2 minutes of study that I knew far more Uyghur than I knew of Mandarin after 80 hours of intensive coursework.  My battered self confidence rose somewhat with that realization. Turkish is to Uyghur what Flemish is to Dutch or Afrikaans, at least at the elementary level. They share a lot of Arabic, Farsi and Turkic root words, just like English can be deconstructed back into its French, Germanic and Old English/Anglo Saxon origins. It’s fascinating.

Can I show you some basics? The words on the left are Uyghur and the ones on the right are Turkish. If there’s just one word, it’s the same in both languages.  The Uyghur spellings were taken from the textbook I found, so any irregularities are theirs. I wouldn’t know any better. The Turkish equivalents came from my faulty, tired brain, so if I made any spelling mistakes I apologize.

My Handy Dandy Basic Turco-Uyghur Glossary

1. bu- this
2. shu-şu- that
3. ne- what?
4. ne(de)- at what?
5. qanche- kaç – how many?
6. kitab/p- book
7. kim- who
8. -mu (question suffix for  yes/no questions)
9. u- o – he/she/it
10. adem- adam- man
11. bir- one
12. birinchi- birinci- 1st
13. ikki- iki- two
14. uch- üç- three
15. tort- dört- four
16. besh- beş – five
17. alte- altı- six
18. yette- yedi- seven
19. sekkiz- sekiz – eight
20. toqquz- dokuz- nine
21. on- ten
22. on bir- eleven
23. on ikki/iki- twelve
24. yigirme- yirmi- 20
25. ottuz- otuz- 30
26. az- few
27. yüz- 100/face
28. koz- göz- eye/eyes
29. yerim- yarım- half
30. gül- flower (in Turkish it’s specifically a rose)
31. depter- defter- notebook
32. söz- word
33. ders- lesson
34. derslık- pertaining to lesson
35. sohbet- dialogue/conversation
36. qelem- kalem- pen
37. kichik- küçük- small
38. oghul- oğul- boy/son
39. isim- name/noun
40. ish- iş- work
41. yengi-  yeni- new
42. kerek- gerek- necessary
43. ich- iç – inner part, within
44. her- each
45. it- dog (but kind of rude in Turkish, like ‘itin olurum’- ‘I wanna be your dog’)
46. at- horse
47. beliq- balık- fish
48. pikir-  fikir- idea
49. eng- en- most (superlative)
50. aq- ak- white
51. emma- ama- but
52. tashliq- taşlık- covered in stone, gravelly (taş- stone, as in Tashkent= Stone City)
53. tekrar- repetition
54. top- ball
55. su- water
56. bugün- today
57. belkim- belki- maybe
58. bil(mek)- to know
59. kelmek- gelmek- to come
60. kormek- görmek- to see
61. qara- kara- black/dark
62. yeshil- yeşil- green
63. qizil- kızıl- red
64. manta- mantı- steamed dumplings
65. hem- also/as well
66. we- ve- and
67. yash- yaş- age
68. etmek- to do
69. ye/yemek- to eat
70. til- dil- language/tongue
71. demek- to say/speak
72. sen/siz- you/y’all (polite singular, but also plural in Turkish)
73. shepke- şapka- peaked cap
74. kun- gün- day/sun
75. yaz(maq/mak)- to write
76. oqu(maq)- oku(mak)- to read
77. yer- place/location
78. satmaq- satmak- to sell
79. alma- elma- apple
80. uzum- grape
81. bashqa- başka- other/another
82. yumshaq- yumuşak – soft
83. Yurt- hometown/place of origin
84. meydan- town square

So yes, I feel slightly less stupid when dealing with the Uyghur language, which is a welcomed feeling after nearly three years of feeling like an incomprehensible doofus in Mandarin. And so, my tribute to them in the form of a really lovely, comforting autumnal stew.

Ingredients

• A bottle of stout
• Beef or lamb, in cubes, from a slab about the size of three decks of cards
• Spuds and carrots and about half a medium onion
• Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and pepper

You’ll need a wok to brown the meat and a crock pot or stew pot to cook everything together.

The process is very simple.

• Cut up all the veggies into shapes and sizes that please you.
• Cube the meat and marinate it for maybe an hour with some worcestershire sauce and a little salt and pepper
• Brown the meat in the wok. The beef we get is weirdly watery and takes a while to brown.
• Sautee the onion in the beef detritus in the wok, adding a little more oil.
• Throw everything into the crock pot, including the bottle of stout and a bit of water so it has something to stew in, and cook on high for an hour then on low for another hour or two. It gets better with time so we tend to leave it going for the afternoon. Check every so often to make sure the liquid levels are okay.

Done