Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Making pumpkin masala recipe even easier
If you thought that the pumpkin masala / kaddu ki sabzi recipe couldn't get any easier, you're wrong - you can skip skinning the pumpkin - just dice without peeling!!! Saves a lot of time and is equally tasty, if not more :p
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Search results in this day and age
This is what I got when I searched for a "food processor" at Dick Smith's website. Unbelievable
Indian recipes / Indian cooking
Over the last couple of days, it was pretty hard to avoid Masterchef (a reality cooking competition on Australian TV).
It got me thinking about what is the history behind Indian cooking, what influenced Indian cooking to develop and come out the way it is, and how in the world are there so many different cuisines within India. I think it would be a fascinated topic for research and I am sure there have been many gluttons like me who have already studied this area quite keenly.
One potential topic would be to study the correlation between cooking style and crime since intuitively elaborate and spicy cooking styles would lead to demanding lifestyles, and at some point of time if I am unable to live that life, it may drive me to commit a crime. On the other hand, simple lifestyle brought about by simple cooking would result in being content with what you have and thereby lower criminal tendencies.
That is also the essence of Indian philosophy in which food is categorized as "Taamsic" (inducing desire) or "Saatvic" (leading to simplicity). As generally seen, most of the vegetables like pumpkin, carrots, peas are categorized as Saatvic while the high-heat and high-taste containing items such as Garlic, Onions, Meat are categorized as Taamsic.
It got me thinking about what is the history behind Indian cooking, what influenced Indian cooking to develop and come out the way it is, and how in the world are there so many different cuisines within India. I think it would be a fascinated topic for research and I am sure there have been many gluttons like me who have already studied this area quite keenly.
One potential topic would be to study the correlation between cooking style and crime since intuitively elaborate and spicy cooking styles would lead to demanding lifestyles, and at some point of time if I am unable to live that life, it may drive me to commit a crime. On the other hand, simple lifestyle brought about by simple cooking would result in being content with what you have and thereby lower criminal tendencies.
That is also the essence of Indian philosophy in which food is categorized as "Taamsic" (inducing desire) or "Saatvic" (leading to simplicity). As generally seen, most of the vegetables like pumpkin, carrots, peas are categorized as Saatvic while the high-heat and high-taste containing items such as Garlic, Onions, Meat are categorized as Taamsic.
Monday, July 20, 2009
mirchi aur lahsun/ lahsan ka achar/ achaar (chilli garlic pickle)
This is a chilli pickle recipe that Michelle's mum gave me and I love it because it's hot and full of flavor. It's a bit too hot so if you can't handle chilli, you might wanna sit this one out :D
Ingredients
Chilli - 500 grams
Garlic - 200 grams
Curry leaves - 1 packet (about 10 branches or 20 grams)
Salt - 100 grams
Mustard oil - 200 ml
Olive oil - 50 ml
Mustard seeds - 1 tablespoon
Fennel seeds - 3 tablespoons
Turmeric - 2 tablespoons
Chilli Flakes (for extra kick only) 4 tablespoons
pickle masala mix from indian store (Brands: MDH/ Mangal/ etc) - 100 grams
Grind the Chilli and Garlic in the food processor, keep fairly coarse.
Heat mustard oil in a big pan and when hot, add the mustard and fennel seeds. After half a minute, add the turmeric and curry leaves, closely followed by the chilli garlic mix. Cook for 2 mins and take off. Add the chilli flakes if you want extra hot, salt, and pickle mix and put in a dry and clean jar and put the olive oil on top to cover the pickle. It's ready to eat immediately but I give it at least 2 weeks to soften up.
Ingredients
Chilli - 500 grams
Garlic - 200 grams
Curry leaves - 1 packet (about 10 branches or 20 grams)
Salt - 100 grams
Mustard oil - 200 ml
Olive oil - 50 ml
Mustard seeds - 1 tablespoon
Fennel seeds - 3 tablespoons
Turmeric - 2 tablespoons
Chilli Flakes (for extra kick only) 4 tablespoons
pickle masala mix from indian store (Brands: MDH/ Mangal/ etc) - 100 grams
Grind the Chilli and Garlic in the food processor, keep fairly coarse.
Heat mustard oil in a big pan and when hot, add the mustard and fennel seeds. After half a minute, add the turmeric and curry leaves, closely followed by the chilli garlic mix. Cook for 2 mins and take off. Add the chilli flakes if you want extra hot, salt, and pickle mix and put in a dry and clean jar and put the olive oil on top to cover the pickle. It's ready to eat immediately but I give it at least 2 weeks to soften up.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Hare dhaniye / dhanie ki chutney (green coriander chutney)
At dinner gatherings, most of the homes in India will get the party started with samosa and other home made savoury starters (chicken tikka is very popular amongst north Indians). The best dip for these (democratically selected) is green coriander chutney or "hare dhaniye ki chutney". Every region has a variation of the same. In Maharashtra, adding roasted peanuts/ groundnuts is popular while in central India, where I grew up, mint is the prefered addition. I am posting a very simple recipe of this delightfully refreshing dip as I like it :)
Ingredients (to make about 200 - 250grams)
Coriander leaves - 150grams
mint (optional) 30 grams
Garlic - 8 cloves (you can even eliminate it if you have post-dinner plans ^-^)
Ginger - about 30 grams
green chillis - I like about 8 hot ones (but you can reduce them to 3-4 if you don't like it too hot)
lemon/ lime - 1
sugar - 3 teaspoons
salt - 1.5 teaspoon
olive oil (optional) - 3 tablespoons
Chop up the coriander roughly (makes blending it easier). In a blender, add the garlic cloves, green chillis, sliced ginger (since it's harder to blend ginger), 20 ml water, mint, olive oil, and one third of the coriander. Blend till it's a smooth paste, and repeat the process with other parts of coriander. Add the other two thirds of the coriander and also the salt and sugar. Take out in the storage container and squeeze in the lemon, mix well. Enjoy on sandwiches, with samosas, cheese and crackers, mathris (yummm - will try to post it's recipe soon). Hope you like it as much as I do (but not as much as Menno does who eats it like a normal veggie and we have to stop him :D)
Take care and stay healthy,
Gaurav
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Learn to read, (wo)man!
I opened my teacher's evaluation forms today with the same feeling of enthusiasm+fear+hope and was going through the comments in a ridiculous hope to see something on the lines of
"gaurav is so great that he should be rewarded by giving him 20 million dollars and 3 years leave"
or maybe
"gaurav is so bad that he should be gotten rid of by giving him 20 million dollars and 3 years leave"
anyways, I came to this student who gave me a bad rating (not that i am not used to negative feedback :D) Let's call this student "Pat" (I got greeted with a vase by Gunjan, and not in a good way, when I named this character "Harry")
So smarty-pants Pat ticks "strongly disagree" on my teaching evaluation form thinking it's "strongly agree" column. I know that Pat didn't really mean to tick SD since before ticking the dreaded column, Pat commented,
"great lecturer - made it really interesting"
I would have received a 5/5 class feedback if not for Pat.
Pat, before learning C++ and Java, learn to read mate!
sigh...
"gaurav is so great that he should be rewarded by giving him 20 million dollars and 3 years leave"
or maybe
"gaurav is so bad that he should be gotten rid of by giving him 20 million dollars and 3 years leave"
anyways, I came to this student who gave me a bad rating (not that i am not used to negative feedback :D) Let's call this student "Pat" (I got greeted with a vase by Gunjan, and not in a good way, when I named this character "Harry")
So smarty-pants Pat ticks "strongly disagree" on my teaching evaluation form thinking it's "strongly agree" column. I know that Pat didn't really mean to tick SD since before ticking the dreaded column, Pat commented,
"great lecturer - made it really interesting"
I would have received a 5/5 class feedback if not for Pat.
Pat, before learning C++ and Java, learn to read mate!
sigh...
Monday, July 13, 2009
Milan-Singapore Trip
I had a conference trip to Milan this July and luckily the sun was out from 6 in the morning to 10 at night, which meant I could attend most of the talks from 10am to 5pm and still have enough time to go around. Here's a brief travelogue of my trip...
First things first, DO NOT get money converted at travelex Sydney - A**h****. They charge a big commission and give you a poor exchange rate. get it converted from singapore airport - zero commission and much better rate; or any global bank such as HSBC. also, in general, get it converted at destination airport rather than from where you leave.
I was staying in Hotel Atahotel FieraMilano (translated to "Fair market of Milan") next to Domodossola station, just one stop away from the city's central station of Cadorna (from where you also get the train to the airport). There were two problems with the hotel - costly internet and unfriendly staff (not explicitly rude, but kind of inhospitable); but if you are on your vacation and don't want to check the mail, and also don't give two dimes over the hotel staff, it's a good hotel to stay at, since it's reasonably priced (around 110AUD at current exchange rate for a double room), and is very close to central station.
As you walk out of the Cadorna station, you can see the dome of a castle nearby which is Castello Sforzesco. This was my favorite place on day one of the trip and remained that way at the end of it. The sheer enormity, design from a defensive perspective and solid construction is breath-taking. I especially loved the side towards built with huge cubical black stone that gave it strength. The strategic look-out points gave an early warning of potential attacks to the army. The central courtyard is huge! Perhaps it's the same as the combined area of two soccer fields.
Just outside you've got a newly constructed fountain area where you can cool down in summer as temperature there was 35 degree Celsius, a nice change from Sydney's winter. But sometimes it was too hot and the fountain in front of the castle and numerous taps around the city were always appreciated.
The best way to explore the city is by bus and trams. The tram was my preference between the two and you can take unlimited rides each day for a price of 3 euros (around 5 auds). This is much better than a daytripper in sydney. In fact, it's cheaper than a single one-way ticket from my place to the city in sydney! Unfortunately, this did not include the outer suburbs tickets which was 1.55 euro, still cheap from Australian perspective. The trains come every 3 mins during peak hours and 15 minutes during off peak hour. From my hotel to Cadorna, to Famgosta, to Assgao where the conference was held, it took me 40 minutes (including the two change overs) so I would say the transportation is very well connected. The food in Milan is awesome! The conference lunches were really nice with beautiful desserts.
From Cadorna, you can go to Duomo station which is the shopping center and also the location of "Duomo" cathedral itself. From the inside, it's pretty much like any other cathedral with glass paintings and other stuff, but from the outside it's spectacular with numerous "spikes" that are in fact 10-feet high statues of relevant people from history including kings, saints, priests, Jesus, and also Napolean Bonaparte, who ordered the completion of the Duomo around 1805. He was later crowned the King of Italy at Duomo. The art-work and attention to details on each pillar is unbelievable. Duomo also shows that say what you may, symmetry rules when it comes to architecture.
Next to Duomo is Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II - an eye-popping shopping center with a dazzling mosaic floor and statue engravings on the walls. And again, it is symmetric with four lanes going out of the shopping center. The aerial view will do better justice than my description. P.S. I hate the McD's there since it kind of diminishes the beauty of the place :(
Gunjan's brother, Mohit joined me on the fourth day of trip and we had a real good time watching "It's always sunny in philadelphia" in the morning at the hotel (the things you do when in Milan!) . We went to the castle once more and then to Sansiro stadium - the home of A C and Inter Milan. Visiting their gallery was a wonderful experience but the ground was disappointingly covered since U2 had a concert the night before. We took the tram around the city and headed off to Galleria where we bought ferrari stuff for Mohit and Gunjan.
From Milan, I headed off for Singapore and watched "Sunshine cleaning" in the flight, which I thought, was an excellent movie. Of course, Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are both easy on the eye but for me the actor who plays their dad and the guy at the sanitation shop stole the show.
Kavita and Rahul generously hosted me in Singapore and they had a lovely house in Hougong. Singapore was still hot and humid with intermittent rains. Shopping is always the central attraction in Singapore in the absence (or lack) of waterfalls, treks, hills, castles, or cultural heritage. Unfortunately, the shopping center containing the shop I most wanted to visit was demolished and I dragged KR to a dozen shops making them walk a cumulative 16 kms in the process - apologies :(
We headed back home to prepare palak paneer and iranian zaafran rice for dinner, which was a success, if I may say so myself :p It was also really nice of Rahul to get me the Henry Jersey from Pattaya/Phuket while they were in Thailand in Dec 2007/ Jan 2008. I love it :)
From Singapore it was back to Sydney and it was pretty normal... except that I had a window sit with two "big" people next to me so I had to hold back on the coke :(
Grazie,
Gaurav
First things first, DO NOT get money converted at travelex Sydney - A**h****. They charge a big commission and give you a poor exchange rate. get it converted from singapore airport - zero commission and much better rate; or any global bank such as HSBC. also, in general, get it converted at destination airport rather than from where you leave.
I was staying in Hotel Atahotel FieraMilano (translated to "Fair market of Milan") next to Domodossola station, just one stop away from the city's central station of Cadorna (from where you also get the train to the airport). There were two problems with the hotel - costly internet and unfriendly staff (not explicitly rude, but kind of inhospitable); but if you are on your vacation and don't want to check the mail, and also don't give two dimes over the hotel staff, it's a good hotel to stay at, since it's reasonably priced (around 110AUD at current exchange rate for a double room), and is very close to central station. 
As you walk out of the Cadorna station, you can see the dome of a castle nearby which is Castello Sforzesco. This was my favorite place on day one of the trip and remained that way at the end of it. The sheer enormity, design from a defensive perspective and solid construction is breath-taking. I especially loved the side towards built with huge cubical black stone that gave it strength. The strategic look-out points gave an early warning of potential attacks to the army. The central courtyard is huge! Perhaps it's the same as the combined area of two soccer fields. 
Just outside you've got a newly constructed fountain area where you can cool down in summer as temperature there was 35 degree Celsius, a nice change from Sydney's winter. But sometimes it was too hot and the fountain in front of the castle and numerous taps around the city were always appreciated.
The best way to explore the city is by bus and trams. The tram was my preference between the two and you can take unlimited rides each day for a price of 3 euros (around 5 auds). This is much better than a daytripper in sydney. In fact, it's cheaper than a single one-way ticket from my place to the city in sydney! Unfortunately, this did not include the outer suburbs tickets which was 1.55 euro, still cheap from Australian perspective. The trains come every 3 mins during peak hours and 15 minutes during off peak hour. From my hotel to Cadorna, to Famgosta, to Assgao where the conference was held, it took me 40 minutes (including the two change overs) so I would say the transportation is very well connected. The food in Milan is awesome! The conference lunches were really nice with beautiful desserts.
From Cadorna, you can go to Duomo station which is the shopping center and also the location of "Duomo" cathedral itself. From the inside, it's pretty much like any other cathedral with glass paintings and other stuff, but from the outside it's spectacular with numerous "spikes" that are in fact 10-feet high statues of relevant people from history including kings, saints, priests, Jesus, and also Napolean Bonaparte, who ordered the completion of the Duomo around 1805. He was later crowned the King of Italy at Duomo. The art-work and attention to details on each pillar is unbelievable. Duomo also shows that say what you may, symmetry rules when it comes to architecture. 
Next to Duomo is Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II - an eye-popping shopping center with a dazzling mosaic floor and statue engravings on the walls. And again, it is symmetric with four lanes going out of the shopping center. The aerial view will do better justice than my description. P.S. I hate the McD's there since it kind of diminishes the beauty of the place :(
Gunjan's brother, Mohit joined me on the fourth day of trip and we had a real good time watching "It's always sunny in philadelphia" in the morning at the hotel (the things you do when in Milan!) . We went to the castle once more and then to Sansiro stadium - the home of A C and Inter Milan. Visiting their gallery was a wonderful experience but the ground was disappointingly covered since U2 had a concert the night before. We took the tram around the city and headed off to Galleria where we bought ferrari stuff for Mohit and Gunjan.
From Milan, I headed off for Singapore and watched "Sunshine cleaning" in the flight, which I thought, was an excellent movie. Of course, Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are both easy on the eye but for me the actor who plays their dad and the guy at the sanitation shop stole the show.
Kavita and Rahul generously hosted me in Singapore and they had a lovely house in Hougong. Singapore was still hot and humid with intermittent rains. Shopping is always the central attraction in Singapore in the absence (or lack) of waterfalls, treks, hills, castles, or cultural heritage. Unfortunately, the shopping center containing the shop I most wanted to visit was demolished and I dragged KR to a dozen shops making them walk a cumulative 16 kms in the process - apologies :(
We headed back home to prepare palak paneer and iranian zaafran rice for dinner, which was a success, if I may say so myself :p It was also really nice of Rahul to get me the Henry Jersey from Pattaya/Phuket while they were in Thailand in Dec 2007/ Jan 2008. I love it :)
From Singapore it was back to Sydney and it was pretty normal... except that I had a window sit with two "big" people next to me so I had to hold back on the coke :(
Grazie,
Gaurav
Saturday, July 4, 2009
iranian zaafran rice
for the record, it's 2:40 am and I am watching tennis. don't know whether waking up all night watching tennis on tv and badminton on youtube worth it or not..... oh i know, it's not!
anyways, iranian zaafran rice recipe - (iranians please excuse me if i might have missed something and feel free to comment)
ingredients
long grain rice (basmati preferred) 500grams
salt 1/2 teaspoon
olive oil/ ghee (clarified butter) 30 grams
sultanas 50 grams
cashew 100 grams
potato 1 large
fried onions 100 grams
oh... and saffron 5 grams
1. wash rice in warm water to get rid of excess starch.
2. boil rice in a lot of water (about 3 litres) till it's about 75% done
3. drain water away and mix the oil/ ghee in the rice.
4. separate rice in two parts A and B. boil 20 ml of water and mix saffron to get the flavor in the water and mix this in part A.
5. line the base of a heavy base pot with 1 cm thick potato slices.
6. add water so that it covers the potatoes (50-100 ml should be sufficient).
7. put the rice (i like part A on one side and B on another) over the potatoes and spread the sultanas on top, close the pot with lid so that steam doesn't come out. Try to seal it as much as possible.
8. cook on LOWEST POSSIBLE HEAT for 30 mins.
9. add cashews and cook for another 15 mins.
10. garnish with the fried onions.
11. serve with yogurt and mutton curry - yummmm!
oooooh oooooh garnish with fresh pomegranate seeds if you can get your hands on them. divine!
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