Gaurav Gupta @ Sydney

Marathon Day

2011-09-18T20:26:00.003+10:00

18th September finally arrives. Seven months of training and hard work finally (hopefully) paying off. The aim is to beat my PB and the 4-hour mark, anything faster is a bonus.

Couldn't sleep last night with all the excitement and enthusiasm, too much adrenaline. Woke up at 04:50 and got ready by 05:30 to catch the train to Milsons Point for a 07:30 start.

The environment is electric with thousands of marathon runners around, and music bands, and cheering crowd.

The start is pretty good and in the middle of all this madness and adrenaline, I start running with a bunch of other people, not worrying about how fast or slow am I going. It's when I hit the 15km mark that I realize that I am doing 12.5 kmph. Crossed the halfway point at 1:44:00 which is 5 minutes faster than my PB. Started running with "Matt" - a random runner I met during the run and he picks up the pace, enticing me with the prospect of finishing in 3:30 if we keep the pace up. This is when things start getting horribly wrong :(

The temperature has already risen to 28 degrees and trying to do something like this (running faster than you really should) is surely a bad idea. At the 27km mark, I start struggling to keep up and by the next kilometer, I tell Matt that I have to slow down. Jogged for a while at 10kmph but started cramping REALLY BAD. Power-walked for the next 9km at 7.5 to 8.5 kmph to minimize the time loss. There were hundreds of runners struggling with the heat, cramping, spasming, falling down... The walking strategy actually turns out to be pretty smart as I lost maybe 20-25 minutes but I minimized any physical damage. Started running at 10.5 kmph at 38km mark and kept it up till the finish line.

Net time: 3:58:36
First half 1:44:xx
Second half: 2:14:xx

Here's the runkeeper log:

In retrospect, the only change I would make is to stick with the 3:45 marker for the first half.
Anyways, quite happy with the time and that's another item off life's checklist :-)
Some pictures from the event -

marathon fund raising target achieved

2011-09-08T09:25:00.000+10:00

achieved fund raising target of 1111$ for australian red cross. thanks heaps, friends! BTW, you can still donate at: http://gofundraise.com.au/page/gaurav1780.

marathon on 18th september in sydney city. see you there!

Fundraising for Sydney Marathon

2011-08-29T10:08:00.002+10:00

hi all,

as some of you might know, i am running the sydney marathon this year (and hoping to finish the 42k circuit too :D)

you can see my preparation runs at http://runkeeper.com/user/gaurav1780/activity/49521484

since the start of training, i have run a total of 964.3 kms in 90 runs with the longest run being 42.2 kms in 4:02:00 on July 16th

i am hoping to raise 1111$ for australian red cross as i have found them to be the first one at locations that really need help.

i hope you can be generous with your donations :) (all donations are tax deductible in Australia).

http://www.gofundraise.com.au/page/gaurav1780

cheers

gaurav

Flexi-easy-chicken

2011-07-15T08:07:00.001+10:00

Recently, I discovered that our pantry was over crowded and we really needed to use up things quickly.

So I went on a mission to utilize what's already there in my cooking. I had a can of rendang paste and a coconut as well as heaps of potatoes and onions. Bought some chicken (though traditionally beef is supposed to go in rendang but i wanted to make something quicker), cut potatoes and onions (3 each) in big chunks (just 6 to 8 pieces of the whole thing), blended the coconut (about 100 grams) and cut the chicken thigh fillet in big chunks of 2 by 2 inches as well.

Fry the onions for a minute or two, add the potatoes and chicken, fry for another two, add the rendang paste and coconut, turn heat down to low after another two minutes, cook for about 40-50 minutes and done :) Now *that* is an easy dish to make and not too bad on the taste buds either!

Zoya turns 50 ... days

2011-06-01T07:56:00.000+10:00

And dad quits facebook. I have decided to launch my personal site very soon. Right now, it's just parked at http://www.sleepeater.net/ but will have some content in the coming weeks and months. Still working on a decent and maintainable template (hey, I am an OO lecturer, had to use "maintainable" somewhere!)

So, about Zoya; missy is feeding, sleeping, and pooping well which means all systems are working normally and she is growing well (she weighs in at 4.2 kgs and measures 55cm, which are both in normal range)

Following are few pictures that I'd like to share with my blog readers. Also, haven't had a chance to cook a lot lately, but for someone who came to get a few cooking tips and tricks, simple spiral pasta with pan fried chopped onions and finely chopped garlic, off-the-shelf pasta sauce, 1 tablespoon basil pesto, diced pumpkin microwaved for 5-6 minutes, crushes and roasted walnuts OR almonds ... YUM!

So, pictures!

Best coffee places in Sydney

2011-05-18T18:01:00.000+10:00

Further to my previous post about good coffee shops in Melbourne, this one is closer to home, in Sydney

Coffee Alchemy, 24 Addison Road, Marrickville
Gnome, 536 Crown Street, Surry Hills (Double Ristretto - Woah!)
Single Origin Roasters, 60-64 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills
Bean Drinking, Shop 1, 13 Ernest Place, Crows Nest
Mecca, 1 Alfred Street or 67 King Street, Sydney
Forsyths, 284 Willoughby Road, Naremburn
Espresso Organica, 49A Majors Bay Road, Concord

Done and done :-)
Gaurav

Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption movement

2011-04-07T10:31:00.001+10:00

Indian social activist Anna Hazaare on fast unto death against corruption in India. Please read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Hazare and

http://www.ndtv.com/article/in
dia/what-is-the-jan-lokpal-bill-why-its-important-96600

to see his cause.

Please repost on FB and tweet "Social activist #Anna #Hazare fasts unto death against corruption in India. Whole nation fasts on April 9. Pls re-tweet even if not Indian!"

India has a population of 1.2 billion with a economy booming at an unbelievable rate. Still there are 37% people below the poverty line and the gap between the rich and poor is only widening. The following article written 3.5 years back is a pretty darn good representation of what India is currently, and what India is capable of.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,499166,00.html

Anna Hazare is one of those prominent figures, whose voices are heard by the government. If he and other public figures who are contributing towards rectifying mistakes that past and present politicians and government officials have made, knowingly, or unknowingly, it is important they get our support. We, the people who have national and international audience, no matter, how big or small it is. Information has continued to be the key weapon in all wars and this is no different. Only by instilling fear in the corrupt, by letting them know that there will be consequences for their actions, can India be freed from this evil that has held back a tremendous nation with beautiful people. I request you all, to share this post with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, personal blogs; to print it out and put it in your organization (especially in India) and make sure the voice of Anna is heard.

I was born a Hindu, but I don't go to the temple often. If I have a religion, it is to live a life that is abundant of correct actions. When you look back at the years you've lived, you should feel proud, proud of the fact that you have not exploited others, proud of the fact that you helped others within your means, proud of that one day in your life when you returned the extra 10 rupees that the grocer gave you by mistake. For me, Anna Hazare is the epitome of this ideology. Let's help him just a little bit so that the next generation can be even prouder of being an Indian.

Jai Hind.

Best coffee places in melbourne

2011-03-29T10:20:00.006+11:00

... and this comes from a very reliable source, Filip :-)

Standouts (in no particular order)

- Sensory Lab (297, Little Collins Street)
- Auction Rooms (103-107 Errol Street, North Melb)
- Seven Seeds (106 - 114 Berkeley Street, Carlton)

* the guys at Brother Baba Budan are now at seven seeds

and the following are recommended as well

- St Ali (12-18 Yarra Place, South Melb)
- Little Mule Cafe (19, Somerset Place, Melb)
- Proud Mary (172 Oxford Street, Collingwood)
- Market Lane (13/13/163 Commercial Rd)
- Mailing Room (206 Canterbury Rd)
- DeadMan Espresso (35, Market Street, South Melb)

Enjoy :)

The Ten Curry Commandments

2011-03-25T20:25:00.000+11:00

A good curry (AGC) is -

is well-planned
never burnt .... at any stage
is not spicy but aromatic
demands good meat
needs ginger (garlic ... maybe, but ginger is a must)
takes time to cook (at least 2 hours)
customized for the guest(s)
does not leave a messy kitchen
the one where the guests stay away from accompaniments (pickles, chutneys, etc)
to be served to good company only

Have your say, what's your favorite commandment (or a different one!)

lauki gilki turai (long gourd/ sponge gourd/ ridge gourd) recipe

2011-03-16T17:36:00.000+11:00

The above three vegetables have exactly identical recipes except the cooking times.

These veggies are classified under "Saatvik" food in Indian culture which means "pure/ sin-less".
The other category (which i admit, it more popular in our household contains) meat, dairy, onions, garlic, and pretty much anything which is tasty.

But still these "Saatvik" veggies are brilliant and very satiating by themselves!

Ingredients (to serve 4 when it's the only dish being served with chapaati/ rice):

1.5 kgs of either Long Gourd (LG)/ Sponge Gourd (SG)/ Ridge Gourd (RG)
20 ml oil
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/6 tea spoon of asafoetida powder (like a couple of pinches, that's all)
1 teaspoon of chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder
salt to taste

Skin the veggies and cut into small pieces, heat oil in a heavy base pot and add mustard seeds followed by cumin seeds after 10 seconds. let them pop for another 15 seconds and add asafoetida. after 5 more seconds, add the diced veggies, cook on high stirring occasionally for 2 mins, reduce heat to low-medium, cover and cook for 5 mins. add the chilli, turmeric and salt, cover back and cook for another 15 mins. Easy and yummy-as :p

Alu Baingan Recipe (Potatoes and Eggplant)

2011-03-13T20:25:00.003+11:00

Hey all,

This is a recipe given by Khushboo and we absolutely love this one! The speciality is the crushed peanuts added to the spices to give it a crunchy texture. Of course, you can leave peanuts out or substitute for another nut if someone is allergic to these!

Ingredients

Eggplants – 500 grams, diced

Potatoes – 300 grams, peeled and diced

Onion – 1 medium size, finely chopped

Tomato – 1 big size, finely chopped

Ginger – 1 inch piece, peeled and crushed

Garlic – 5-6 cloves, peeled and crushed

Chilli – 3-4, chopped fine

Oil – 1-2 tablespoon

Bay leaves - 1-2

Dry Coriander seeds - 6-7

Whole black paper - 4-5

Mustard seeds – 1/2 teaspoon

Cumin – 1 teaspoon

Chilli powder – 1 teaspoon

Turmeric powder – 1/2 tea spoon

Coriander powder - 1 big spoon

Salt – as desired

Optional -

Peanuts - 100 grams crushed fine

Sesame seeds - 1 spoon (roasted and powered)

Recipe

Take a kadhai or a heavy base pot

Heat oil on medium

Add bay leaves, dry coriander seeds, whole black paper , mustard seeds, cumin & cook for about 30 seconds or so.

Add ginger, garlic & chilli. Saute for a minute.

Add in the chopped onion stir till golden brown.

Add chopped tomatoes & saute till the mixture leaves oil or around 5-6 min. on high flame.

Add crushed peanuts & optionally sesame seeds.

Add all dry powders (chilli, coriander & turmeric)

Stir for a minute and add potatoes & eggplant.

Add salt, stir and cover the pot on low heat.

Cook for 20 - 25 minutes, stirring every 7-8 minutes, till it turns dark brown. Make sure it doesn't stick to the base (sprinkle some water if needed)

Season with some chopped coriander leaves & dash of lemon :)

Fettuccine with olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto, pine nuts and garlic

2011-02-16T17:10:00.003+11:00

Well, the name says it all. It's a simple and honest dish with no disguises in the form of cream or spices.

Ingredients (to serve 4):

400 grams fettuccine (ok, i am not that fuzzy about the pasta so if you don't have fettuccine, spaghetti or spirals would do)
4 cloves of garlic
1 red onion
50 grams of sun-dried tomatoes
50 grams corn kernels
50 grams pine nuts
2 tablespoons or 50 grams of pesto sauce (I like eggplant pesto in this dish but you can also get basil pesto)
25 ml olive oil (for cooking sauce)
15 ml olive oil (for dressing)
15 ml olive oil (for cooking fettuccine)
1 carrot
100 grams of grilled eggplant
Salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes (no black pepper in this dish, please)

Boil 2 liters of water with 1 teaspoon of salt and 15ml olive oil. Add fettuccine when it comes to a boil and keep boiling on medium to high for 10-15 minutes till it's about 80% cooked. You will notice it getting a bit translucent (yet solid in the center). That means it's *almost* there and you can take it off heat and drain the water. I don't like overcooked pastas as they become soggy and slimey.

When you put the fettuccine to boil, start working on the sauce so that they both finish together. Chop the red onion nice and fine and slice the garlic really thin. In a saucepan, add 25 ml olive oil and when warm, add onions and garlic. Unlike Indian cuisine, you should refrain from "browning" garlic as it should be caramelized in Italian dishes. Saute' this on low-medium for 3-4 minutes and add pesto, chopped sun-dried tomatoes, corn kernels, chopped carrot (optional), chopped grilled eggplant (optional), pine nuts (chopped walnuts if you can't get pine nuts) salt and chilli flakes. Turn heat high and toss for 3-4 minutes. If fettuccine is not ready yet, turn the heat off under sauce. Once they are both ready, turn heat high, add fettuccine to sauce and toss again for 2 minutes. Plate up, drizzle with a few drops of olive oil per plate and top it up with chopped basil. Yum!

Amazing Chicken Satays

2011-01-28T10:48:00.001+11:00

This "Straya Day", our friend Robbie (Robertus) graciously offered to book up a storm for us. The menu was:

Lunch: Indonesian noodles with fish balls and greens in sweet soya sauce

Dinner:
Entree - Chicken Satays
Mains - Beef Rendang, Telor Balado (Eggs in tomato and onion garlic sauce), Beans with lotsa garlic, KangKung (water spinach), Sambal, Jasmine Rice

I have put more pictures of the dishes and his cooking in a public album on facebook -

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=330643

Although every single item was amazing, my favorite were the chicken satays.

Robbie used Enak Co. peanut slab and cooked it with onion garlic and palm sugar.

30 bamboo skewers were soaked in water for about 30 minutes so that they don't burn while cooking.

He then cut (or got me to cut) 500 grams chicken in really small pieces (like a third of your finger) and put 3 on each bamboo skewer.

We then got the charcoal going in a wok and one of the party members (oh why, that's me again!) did a great job at fanning it almost non-stop.

Smeared the chicken skewers with this amazing peanut sauce (not kraft peanut sauce out of the can as they do in restaurants) and cooked them for about 4-5 mins over the charcoal (through a grill of course).

Robbie said before cooking that having these satays is like food-orgasms. And for once, I don't disagree with him!

Robbie, go open a Satay house in Sydney, mate! Information Technology - Glass Ya!

Butter chicken recipe

2010-12-15T11:40:00.003+11:00

Ingredients( serves 8)

50 ml Oil
100 grams butter
1 tsp cumin seeds
5 onions, finely chopped
4 onions, chopped
50g cashews, roasted
3 tsp garlic ginger paste
2 tsp coriander powder
3 tsp red chilli powder
2 tbsp kastoori methi
2 green chilli(optional)
salt to taste
60 g unsalted butter
1 cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
1 tsp garam masala
1.5 kg chicken breast fillet

Recipe

Cut the chicken into big chunks (about 2" cubes should be good). Mix the chicken pieces, 1 tsp garlic ginger paste, 1/2 tsp red chilli, 1 tsp coriander powder and salt in a large bowl. Cover and allow to marinate for 1 hour.
Cook the chicken

Option 1: Heat the oil in a flat pan on medium heat and gently fry the chicken pieces. Remove and set aside.
Option 2: Bake in preheated oven at 220 degree Celsius for 20 mins and then 200 degree Celsius for another 15-20 (or till the chicken is cooked from inside).

Gravy:

Heat the oil in a deep pan on medium heat, then add cumin seeds.
When cumin seeds turns darkish brown, add the chopped onions. Fry till a pale golden brown in color and then add 2tsp garlic ginger paste. Fry for 2 minutes.
Add 1 tsp coriander powder, cashews, 2 tsp red chilli, green chilli (optional) and kastoori methi. fry for a minute.
Finely, add chopped tomatoes then add some water and cook for 10 to 15 minutes.
Remove and set aside for 10 minutes.
Put them in a blender and blend till it's a smooth paste.
Heat butter in a deep pan. Add cinnamon stick and bay leaves.
Add blended puree, salt and 2 cup of water. bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes. add fried chicken pieces. simmer for 5 minutes.
Add cream and garam masala powder.
Simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve hot with parathas/rice :-p

Welcome Zoya

2010-12-10T16:32:00.002+11:00

It is my pleasure to introduce to you all, Zoya. The following ultrasound is from week 12. Expected arrival date is 25/04/2011

Gunjan is keeping well. She is eating healthy, still going to the gym and working out based on Doctors' recommendations and doesn't feel too nauseous or weak, which is excellent!

A Wii boxing game acted as the decider for the name between Gunjan's contender, Zoya; and mine, Sanaa. Zoya won in under 10 seconds.

We can already see our lives changing for the better and can't wait for little Ms. Zoya to arrive :-)

Rabdi / Ras-malaai

2010-11-30T10:13:00.001+11:00

I went to Melbourne a few months back where I put on 4 kgs in a week, thanks to Alka Aunty's Rabdi and Ras Malaai. Took 2 months to get rid of the lard but it was worth it!

Rabdi is like condensed milk with a distinct flavour of pistachos, saffron and cardamom (optionally cinnamon)

The best part about this recipe is that it can be made in the microwave oven :)

Ingredients (to serve 6 people):

Full Cream Milk 1 litre
A pinch of Saffron
2 cardamom pods
10 pistachos
1 small pinch of freshly ground cinnamon (if you like a strong flavour)
50 grams sugar (or to taste)

In a 1000Watt Microwave, boil the milk in a 2ltr utensil (pirex material is ideal) for 10 minutes. Stir and repeat till milk condenses to 500 ml (should take about 5-6 rounds). You need a big utensil because the milk rises a bit. When you stir it, be careful as the milk gets super-heated and will "erupt" quite vigorously so you might have to wait for 30 or so seconds every time the round finishes.

Add sugar and give it another 3 rounds. It should come down to 300 ml by now. Add well-ground cardamom, saffron, well-cracked pistachos and optionally cinnamon. Stir well, let it cool, and blend. That's the rabdi part - done :). Now this is a dessert by itself.

You can also add readymade rasmalaai (Bikano) if you want.

Enjoy,
Gaurav

memorizing... code!

2010-11-05T10:12:00.000+11:00

this semester in my undergrad class, i have a ... well, a different student. not quite sure why he's a bit ... "confrontational" in general but there can be n reasons for that. so i don't want to be rude to him or anything so i try to keep my calm with him during the lecture.

the other day, he kept insisting about how can one memorize Processing language functions like "line(x1,y1,x2,y2)", how does one meorize the code to draw a cube, and so on. to be honest, he caught me by surprise since i had never been asked a question like that before - how does one memorize programming codes!

i tried to explain to the class about how when they practice enough, they won't *need* to memorize functions and so on but quite frankly, i didn't convince myself, if at all the students.

so here's the answer i wish i had given:

Student: "How can i memorize this code you wrote to draw a cube"
I: "Can you tell me what is 73 + 18?"
Student (Hopefully): 91
I: "Did you memorize that?"

Intuitive understanding would say that programming is rather similar to Math, where understanding of fundamentals is critical towards solving more complex problems that are built on top of simpler problems.

Thus, the brain (IMO) goes through a process of analyzing each separable component of a problem (and by problem, I mean mathematical or computing) to determine

if it's solvable as-it-is, or
whether it can be broken down, or
whether the next separable component should be looked at first.

the brain gradually trains itself to come up with the problem solving process just described above and eventually when faced with a problem, applies the process, and adds any new information in its knowledge base.

I know this is all very intuitive and random hypothesis, but hey, that's why it's going on a blog and not in a research journal :D

Over and out :-)

Cairns - Port Douglas trip

2010-11-01T08:39:00.001+11:00

As some of you might be aware of, Gunjan and I took some time off work and had a wonderful holiday in cairns and port douglas. in this edition, i would like to share some stories from the trip and more importantly some information i wish i had before going.

We took jetstar flight to cairns, stayed there overnight at Queen's Court which is a very basic and economic place to stay. Next morning we picked up our rental car (which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone visiting Queensland, or any place for that matter). We were with AVIS and the staff were not very helpful (at the same time, they weren't too bad either). Although they didn't have the free upgrade we were entitled to, I was pretty happy with the small manual Getz over there as it's really really flat as compared to NSW. So my first suggestion is to get a small (1.3/ 1.6 ltr car and opt for the free extra day instead of free upgrades that rental companies offer as you will NOT need anything heavy duty).

We took off for Port Douglas, and on the way Gunjan finally accepted that I wasn't bluffing about there being mango trees on road side.

We had a dip at a beach on the way and was quite nice - the water was amazingly warm for September (at least for us, who live in Sydney, it was)

In Port Douglas, we stayed at Mercure TreeTops which is 5 mins drive from the city center. The city itself is just one main street and kinda reminded me of Hatod, which has just one road, Nandlal Road. Of course, apart from similar city structure, there's nothing common between the two.

Our evenings were mostly spent in the town where our favorite dinner place was Mango Jam. The vegetarian pizza was excellent and we stuck to that the two nights we were there.

We also tried Rattle Hum where the food was ok, but it ain't no Mango Jam.

The main beach in Port Douglas is Four Mile beach and is serene!

While we were in Port Douglas, we went to see Mossman Gorge and Daintree rainforests.

Mossman gorge is a lovely place and has some pretty interesting flora. The natural landscape is beautiful and offers ample opportunities for good pictures. There is also a tiny pond at the end of the trail where you can have a dip with the fish (so take the swimming gear, snorkel mask and tube, no need to take fins along).

There are a few mosquitos and bugs there so either apply repellent beforehand or better still take it with you. You might also wanna keep a ltr or so of cold water as it gets a bit hot in there.

We then drove to Daintree rainforests and on the way, stopped for an hour-long crocodile river cruise which was nice as we could witness wildlife without restrictions. You don't see tens or hundreds of crocs but you do see a couple of adult crocs and a few babies too. On a lucky day, you can also see some pythons and snakes in the mangroves.

Dainetree rainforests themselves were nice but since we were a bit tired from the trip that day, we chose not to explore them comprehensively. We did have a swim at the beach at the end of the trip (What was the name of the beach...... Cape Tribulation beach, yes!) It's not that great for swimming as it has quite a few rocks within 10 meters of the shore. Hence, you have to be a little careful, otherwise you might seriously hurt yourself.

But on the way back, we saw a beautiful yellow belly snake, at the sight of which, Gunjan, logically, ran away but I decided to take some pictures from about 15 ft away. I had enough time to change my lens and the reptile offered some good shots. (S)he got a bit upset towards the end and that's when I decided to run away too :D

The main attraction, at least before we had left Sydney, was the Great Barrier Reef. It was spectacular to see the reef and the sea life down there.

There's a cafe in Port Douglas which has one of the funniest signs at the door I have ever seen. I wish their coffee were equally good too :-(

Port Douglas weekly markets were also really good and had lots of fresh fruits on offer. I gorged on my childhood favorite - sugarcane. Had heaps of juice while we were there. Trust me, it can't get any sweeter than that, or better, with a twist of ginger in it ... yumm :-p

From cairns, we did a day trip to Paronella Park, named after it's builder and owner, a Spanish migrant who worked in cane fields and was wise enough to save to buy a property and build a nice small castle on it. It is definitely worth going to, with a small picnic basket.

While we were in cairns, we went to the Art Gallery, that was holding the FNQ 2010 exhibition and two paintings really impressed us. I have forgotten the name of the first one, but the second one was "The love song of J Alfred Prufrock"

is THAT why it's wrong!?

2010-09-08T08:15:00.006+10:00

Usually, I refrain from putting up political posts here but this one had to be shared!

I quote the following from Sydney Morning Herald (08/09/10)

The concerned news, with similar take, can be found on other western newspapers such as New York Times and The Telegraph.

A Florida evangelical church has vowed to go ahead with plans to burn the Koran on the 9/11 anniversary, despite fears it may fuel an angry backlash and endanger US and allied troops in Afghanistan.

The White House lent its voice to growing concern from military leaders that the incendiary move could trigger outrage around the Islamic world, as well as stoke a growing anti-Muslim tide of feeling in the United States.

"It puts our troops in harm's way. Any type of activity like that that puts our troops in harm's way would be a concern to this administration," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, reiterating comments by top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus.

So the White House thinks, and western newspapers concur, that the only (or at least the primary, and worth mentioning) reason it's wrong to burn religious texts is because it might harm THEIR troops - Genius! Score from today's game - Tolerance - 0, Whackos - 1

Guacamole - Si! Hurra, Oh Si!

2010-08-23T08:35:00.003+10:00

Source: http://markmoore.terapad.com/

Guacamole, in my opinion, is the quintessential dip with lebanese bread, nachos, chips or crackers at any party, lazy evening, or just because ...

Traditionally from Mexico, this delightful side made with ripe avocados, lemon, <garlic>, <tomato>, <coriander> (<x> implies that x is optional) is refreshing, healthy, and tasty all at the same time unlike many Indian dishes :D

Ingredients (serves 6 as a dip before mains)

2 ripe avocados (i don't like them too ripe, else they become squishy). the easiest way to check ripeness is a) color - bright green implies not ripe (but sometimes due to artifical ripening, even green ones can be ripe) and hence b) just press them a bit and if they are soft like a fresh banana, they are ripe. they should NOT be tooooo soft like a banana turned black

1 clove of garlic

salt to taste

1 green chili or paprika/ chilli powder according to taste

1/2 lime

Optional:

1 tomato (not too ripe), diced fine
1/2 spanish onion
1 tablespoon finely chopped coriander

crush the garlic (and if you are using, green chilli) really well in a mortar pestle to get the juices out. trust me, you don't want to have a conversation with anyone after you have chewed on one of those bad boys, especially if you have made it for a first date :D

if you are using them, dice the tomato and onion fairly finely

scoop out the avocados, mix all the ingredients, serve in a bowl with bread/ chips/ doritos, naan, etc.
My favorite bread with guacamole is lebanese

Source: http://politicook.net/

Pyaaz tamatar ka kachummar (Onion Tomato Salad)

2010-08-06T10:07:00.000+10:00

Nice and simple stuff. Great on the side for many dishes like Pav Bhaj, Mutton Curry, Biryani, Palak Paneer, Pulao, Khichdi, and more!

Ingredients (for 4 people): Red Onion - 1 medium, Ripe Tomato (but not collapsing) - 2 medium, Coriander (to have 1 tablespoon chopped), Lime - 1/2, Sugar - 1.5 teaspoon, Salt to taste, Chilli powder - 1/4 teaspoon (or even lesser if you don't want it spicy). Slice the onions nice and thin. Dice the tomatoes into small pieces (not so small that they squish into puree :D), Mix all the ingredients together well with hand so that the juices all mix well.

Last minute tip: Optionally, you can add a tablespoon of olive oil but if you want.

pav bhaji / paav bhaaji

2010-08-06T07:55:00.004+10:00

Pav bhaji is probably the most coveted fast food in India. Though it is widely believed to have it's origin in bombay, millions of people relish this delicious dish everyday all over India.

Earlier today, I cooked Pav Bhaji for 200 people. I was very lucky to have Gunjan, Sagar and Tracy to help with the Bhaji. With their help, we finished cooking the bhaji in under two hours. At the event, we COMPLETELY SOLD OUT! Unfortunately we had to turn a few people away but at least there were 200 satisfied (hopefully) foodies. Here're some pictures from the event:

Source: Den Angelles

Ingredients: to serve 8

24 hamburger rolls (3 at least per person)
butter 300 grams
potatoes 400 grams
onions 200 grams
cauliflower 200 grams
eggplant 200 grams
peas 200 grams
tomatoes 200 grams
capsicum 200 grams
ginger garlic paste (make fresh preferably) 2 tablespoon
cumin seeds 1 heaped teaspoon (i wouldn't mind 1.5 actually)
badshah/ everest (i *know* these are good) pav bhaji masala 1 teaspoon for simple, 2 teaspoon for spicy
coriander for garnishing
lime - 1, cut into half and another cut into pieces for serving
Salt to taste

Heat 100 grams butter in a saucepan, add cumin seeds, and fry diced onions.

Dice all the veggies (except peas of course) and boil potatoes, cauli, peas, eggplant, capsicum together. The veggies should be soft in 20 minutes. Potatoes and Caulis take the most time so try and crush them and see if they aer soft.

By the time the veggies are 5 mins into boiling, add the ginger garlic paste and continue cooking it. By the time the veggies are 10 mins into boiling, onions should be soft and you can add pav bhaji masala and tomatoes. This masala should be done by the time the veggies boil (20 minutes time period). Add the boiled veggies, salt and another 100 grams butter to the onion tomato mix and mash, mash, mash and then mash again. Dilute just a little bit if it's very thick. Bhaji should have the consistency so that it can be flipped with a turner. Garnish with chopped coriander, squeeze one lime and mix. Give each person a small piece of lime if they want to add it later. You can also serve pyaaz (onion) and tamatar (tomato) kachummar with it - recipe coming soon :)

For the hamburger rolls, you can baste them with butter and fry them in a pan. I like the rolls pan fried but still a bit soft.

Making your own Garam Masala

2010-07-27T15:43:00.003+10:00

We can find dozens of varieties of "Garam masala" packets in Indian Grocery Stores and Supermarkets, but making your own garam masala is both satisfying and better for your dishes. Another advantage of making your own garam masala is that different dishes need different ingredients in different proportions. Hence, one size fits all is not the best solution.

The following are the major components of a standard Garam Masala:

cardamom (50 grams)

clove (25 grams)

star aniseed (50 grams)

cinnamon (50 grams)

bay leaves (50 grams)

black pepper (25 grams)

black cardamom (50 grams)

mace (25 grams)

You should make sure that all the whole spices are dry. Roast them separately in a frying pan stirring frequently (since each has a different temperature at which they cook and release flavour). Generally, each spice would take about two minutes to roast. You can take it off the heat once they start browning (in case of black pepper and black cardamom, you will see them expanding, that's when you take them off).

Let the whole spices cool down for about 10 minutes and then grind them together in a grinder (easier), or using a mortar pestle (crazy). Store the garam masala in a dry glass bottle and use it within 3 months (it stays pretty much forever, but it loses the flavor eventually).

Pulao / Pulav

2010-07-22T15:15:00.002+10:00

Pulao is an Indian rice dish, a variation to the Persian Pilaf. It goes really well with marathi kadi. Pulao is a healthy and light dish that has many different versions. The one I am covering is an onion cauliflower pulao.

Ingredients:

Onion - 1 large
Garlic - 2 cloves
Cauliflower - 200 grams
Potato - 1 medium (can do without as well)
Peas - 100 grams (Can do without as well)
Rice - 250 grams *basmati*
cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon (important)
Chilli powder - 1/2 teaspoon (1 if you like it spicy)
Turmeric - 1/2 teaspoon
Coriander powder - 1 teaspoon
Salt to taste
Oil - 30 ml

Optional:
Coriander leaves to garnish
Pomegranate seeds to garnish

---------

slice garlic cloves nice and fine. chop onions. soak rice in room temperature water. heat oil and add the cumin seeds. once dark brown, add the garlic and onion. fry for 2-3 mins and add the cauliflower and potatoes diced into small pieces. fry for another 2 minutes. rice must have soaked for 5 minutes by now. wash the rice and drain the water out. add the rice to the pan and stir so that the rice gets covered in oil. all this happens on high heat so the rice might stick to the base. Add the spices (chilli, turmeric, coriander powder) and salt with 50 ml of water. After a minute, add 600 ml of water, let it cook on high for 2 minutes, then turn heat to 3 o'clock position or low, cover and cook for about 20 minutes (At the 10 minute mark, stir through once and add the peas).

Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and pomgranate seeds if available.

Lamb shanks in pear, carrot, onion, garlic sauce

2010-07-20T11:03:00.001+10:00

I know - pear and onions don't sound like they are the best buds but the sauce works pretty well with these two in it!

Ingredients:

Lamb shanks - 2
Olive oil - 20 ml
Vegetable Stock - 200 ml
Pear - 1 (crunchy, not ripe)
Onion - 1 large
Garlic - 3 cloves
Rosemary leaves - 1 tablespoon
Mint leaves - 1 tablespoon
Black pepper - 1/3 teaspoon
Salt - to taste
Lemon - 1

Pre-heat oven to 180 degree Celsius.

Chop the pear, onion and garlic (separately) quite fine. Slice the carrot (rather thick).
Heat olive oil and add the garlic. Add the onion after half a minute and sauté for 2 minutes.
Put the lamb shanks and cook for a minute on each side to seal in the flavor. Add the pear, rosemary, mint, pepper, lemon, and salt. Add the stock and bring it to boil. Cover with an aluminium foil and bake for 1 hour. Take out, mix the sauce again, turn the shanks over and cook for another hour. Done!

Serve with roast potatoes - yumm :p

Favorite commercials

2010-07-16T11:05:00.000+10:00

ENGLISH

HINDI (Indian)

Plain daal

2010-07-02T10:01:00.001+10:00

Here's a version of daal that I made when Gunjan was recently under the weather. Among all the different varieties, I can safely say that this is my favorite.

Ingredients (for 2):

1. Daal - 150 grams
2. Whole chillies slit (fresh, or dried) - 2
3. Cumin seeds - 1 heaped teaspoon
4. Oil - 20 ml
5. Salt - 1/2 teaspoon (or, to your taste)
6. Turmeric - 1/4 teaspoon (or even lesser)
7. Coriander - a decent bunch (chopped)

Wash the daal (to get all chemicals off it), and boil it in 1ltr water with slit chillies, turmeric, salt in a pressure cooker for 15 mins) or a saucepan for 25 mins on high.

Once boiled, heat the oil in a narrow saucepan or a tadka pan if you can get one. When oil is hot, add the cumin and when dark brown, add to the daal. Add 300 ml more water so that it becomes soupy, boil covering it on high for another 5 mins and add the chopped coriander.

Teen Patti Rules

2010-06-23T07:18:00.012+10:00

Teen Patti is a card game of Indian origin and usually played at households on Diwali (which is the main Hindu festival). Of course, addicts play teen patti every day online and in clubs. The fact that I am posting about it's rules doesn't necessarily put me in that category .... right :s ?

The good things about teen patti when compared to poker is that it's simpler and faster. It has lesser probabilistic combinations and hence not too strenuous on the grey cells. So ... here are the rules of Teen Patti.

*Usually*, each person gets 3 cards. Player with highest combination wins.

HIERARCHY

1. Triple (3 aces then 3 kings and ….)

2. Colored sequence (Ace King Queen of same suit, then Ace, 2, 3 of same suit, then King Queen Jack of same suit and …)

3. Sequence (Ace King Queen of different suit, then Ace, 2, 3 of different suit, then King Queen Jack of different suit and …)

4. Color (all 3 cards of the same suit)

5. Pair (2 Aces and a card, then 2 Kings and a card and …)

6. Highest card

BLIND

A player can choose to play WITHOUT seeing his / her cards. This is called playing blind. This has effects on bidding. Explained below.

BETS

Players make their bets ANTI-CLOCKWISE and you need to bet at least the amount bet by the previous person till the winner is decided. DEALER has to put in the base bet first.

If a person is playing blind (without seeing his/her cards), all players who HAVE seen their cards, need to bet twice as much as the blind player.

If a player runs out of money during a game, the game DOESN'T FINISH (like sidepot in poker). Instead the player needs to borrow money from bank if (s)he wants to or fold.

SIDESHOW AND SHOW

When 3 or more players are in, you can ask a sideshow from the person on your LEFT. Whoever has the higher cards stays in the game and if you both have the same cards (for example 2 kings and a 7), the person who ASKS for the sideshow LOSES.

When only 2 players are in, you can ask for a show by putting in the bet that was put in last.

For both sideshow and show, the calling player needs to put in at least the last amount bet.

VARIATIONS

The dealer can make his/her own variation to the game. Some possibilities:

Joker: (for example if 7 is a joker, 7 can be used as ANY card. so if i have 2 kings and a 7, it becomes 3 kings)
Total Joker: everyone gets 5 cards and a particular number, say 8 is a Joker, then the card 8, or multiple cards that total to 8, are Jokers (8, 5+3, 6+2, 1+7, 4+4 are some of the Joker combos for 8)
Highest card joker: everyone gets 4 cards and their highest card is their individual joker (similarly lowest card joker)
Jokers Galore: all Reds (hearts and diamonds) or Blacks (spades or clubs) are jokers (LOTSA JOKERS!)
Best of 4: you get 4 cards. just make the best 3 card hand you can
Imagine one: you get 2 cards, you can imagine a 3rd card for yourself :)
Pair joker: each pair you have in your hand can be used as a joker
Muflis: person with LOWEST hand wins
Blackjack: aim is to make total 21 (ace can be used as 1/11, pictures and 10, others as usual). Any set with total more than 21 will result in automatic loss (BUST). player can ask for more and more cards till (s)he is happy. For example, if I have an 8 and 3, I ask for a card, if I get 2, total becomes 13, I ask for a card, I get Ace, I use it as 1 of course because using it as 11 would make total 24 and I will go bust. So I ask for one more card, I get 7. Total becomes 20. Now I am happy because the next card would most probably make me go bust.
Twist: Each player is dealt a single card which they put on their forehead without seeing it. Thus everyone knows everyone ELSE'S card but their own. TWIST!
Full twist: Just like twist, but with all three cards.
Semi-twist: Each player is dealt 3 cards, they can see one card and put the other two on their forehead.
Passing cards: give 3 cards to everyone, then 3 extra cards to the first player. Each player passes 3 cards to the next till we reach the dealer who puts three back into the pack.
Blind Swap: Each person can choose to exchange one of their card with a card of left side player. Each player picks a card from the other blindly.
Semi-Blind Swap: Each person (A) can choose to exchange one of their card of their choice with a card of left side player. 'A' chooses the card from the other player blindly.
Seen Swap: Each person (A) can choose to exchange one of their card with a card of left side player. Each player chooses their own card they want to discard.
Pack jack: 3 cards to everyone, 3 cards are open as jokers, whenever anyone packs their cards become the new 3 jokers (Interesting!)
Powers of 2: 1,2,4,8 are jokers (Geek!)
What's mine is yours: Each person chooses 1 card and that is the joker for the player on their left.
Folders rule: Initially a joker is decided by the dealer. Each person who folds has the power of changing the joker - BWAHAHAH!

twitter

2010-06-21T21:10:00.006+10:00

hey all,

i have finally decided to get on the twitter-wagon. it would be really nice so that i can:

. put mini recipes/ cooking suggestions online
. make restaurant recommendations
. crack pathetic jokes before i forget them
. and more...

my twitter id is bluephonebox . Right now i am relatively inactive but will pick up the pace soon!

take care,
gaurav

Tiramisu

2010-06-19T12:11:00.005+10:00

Source: http://www.faqs.com/

Another of Alka aunty's recipe - DELICIOUS, and not as heavy as the Tiramisus you get outside :-p

Ingredients:

Sponge fingers
Fresh cream 250 gms
Mascorpone cheese 500 gms
2 cups of strong black coffee (Illy/ Vittori are pretty good!)
Rum - 50 ml (other liquors also work)
Chocolate powder - to sprinkle
Sugar - 2 tablespoons
Castor sugar - 4 tablespoons

Source: http://www.ideli.com.au/

Blend cream, cheese and castor sugar together.
Add sugar to freshly brewed coffee and let it cool. Then add rum to it.
Then dip the sponge fingers in coffee and lay them out on tray(serving dish). This forms base layer.
Put half of cheese mix on top (layer 2)
Put another layer of coffee soaked biscuits. (Either soak biscuits or lay it out or lay biscuits and pour coffee on top) (layer 3).
Put rest of the cheese mix (layer 4).

Sprinkle chocolate powder on top.
Put it in the fridge for a few hours at least before serving. overnight recommended.

Rabdi

2010-06-16T11:39:00.003+10:00

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We are in Melbourne right now and the best thing about the city is Alka Aunty's Rabdi - kicks any desserts ass by a long stretch. It's a very heavy Indian dessert usually served as a sauce for jalebi or rasmalaai.

Ingredients:

Milk (1.5 ltrs)
Pistachos - 25gms(= crushed)
Saffron - a pinch
Sugar - 100 to 200 gram (really depends on how sweet you like it)

Put milk in a 2.5ltr+ microwavable bowl (should leave some room for milk to rise). Boil in a 1000W to 1200W for 10 mins, take it out, stir it, and put it back. Repeat this process till the milk reduces to 600 ml. Add sugar and again, repeat the process of boiling for 10 mins two more times. Blend the milk using a stick blender (or whatever! - can't believe I just used that word). Add saffron, pistachos and leave to cool. Once it reaches room temperature, put it in the fridge.

You can add readymade rasmalaai (alka aunty swears by Bikano rasmalaai) and have excellent dessert :-)

Why is Microsoft doomed to Fail

2010-05-21T09:42:00.002+10:00

NO, Lindsay Lohan does not count as Top News, she doesn't count as ANY News

Best Indian restaurants in Sydney ... and worst

2010-05-20T12:01:00.010+10:00

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Hi all,

There are SO many Indian restaurants in Sydney, but many of them are quite ordinary with a few exceptions, fortunately!

The following are my favorites, along with what I like there -

Raavi's Cumin, Crows Nest (Kashmiri Naan - Yummmm, Saagwala Lamb, Paneer Makhani, Malai Kofta)
Nilgiris, St. Leonards (Very dynamic menu, but Dosas are the best!). Raavi's and Nilgiris are in a league of their own, btw!
Kammadhenu, Newtown and Neutral Bay (Huge selection of Dosas - not as good as Nilgiris but worth a shot if in that area). I'd stay stick to the Dosas, Roti Chinai, and Kotthu Paratha if you go there.
Faheem's, Newtown. For the BEST tandoori chicken (and unfortunately the not-so-good curries) go to Faheem's. Just stick to the tandoori stuff including meat and naans and you'll be all right. If you come back without trying the Tandoori Fish (quite hard to make because fish is very delicate as opposed to chicken so Tandoor-cooking it takes *some* skill)
Maya's Dhaaba, Surry Hills.

BTW, the worst restaurants that I have been to, in Sydney, are:

All India Restaurant, Balmain - The manager is this rude rude woman and the mains are horrible :(
Mantra, Top ryde - Another example of how bad service ruins the mood - food's average, but the waiters are probably movie actors researching their roles, or at least they have the egos to show that.

P.S. Please feel free to leave YOUR favorite (or the ones you really dislike and would like people to stay away from) restaurant(s) as a comment!

Great, now I am hungry!
G

curry cooking tip

2010-04-26T09:59:00.004+10:00

if you are making curry using onion ginger garlic, add the paste one serving spoon at a time to the oil to avoid splattering - true story!

Reflective journal

2010-03-31T11:16:00.008+11:00

This is a post to keep a track of what went right and what did not, in terms of the units I am teaching.

The three units I have this semester are: COMP115 (undergrad), ITEC802 (Postgrad), PICTFDN (Postgrad - external?)

My first observation this semester in COMP115 is how wonderfully chocolates work irrespective of what demographic is your class coming from! They participate very actively given this reward system! I don't like to call it a bribe because "bribe" is something you provide in return for an "unjust" favor. while a reward is something provided for someone who does their job beyond expectation. A general student is not "obliged" to participate. But the participation, if there, should be appreciated and chocolates are a good way. Of course, there are other gestures that show that their class involvement is appreciated like a pat on the back and applause. Generally, students derive self-confidence from the confidence their lecturers have in them. And if they are confident (of their capability to learn new things) coming into the university, they are more likely to perform better during the entire degree.

My second observation is in the external postgrad unit and how difficult it is to teach a programming component without any visual aids whatsoever! I have been given a sound recorder to record my lectures that external students can listen to, but without any visual tools, the lecture notes really need to be more graphical to help students understand the point. this generalizes to the problem of verbose lecture notes. Lecture notes should sparsely and miserly use text and should contain graphs and figures and other media if possible. this might be hard for areas like literature, I understand, but for fields like computer science, history, politics, I am sure lecturers can find relevant images and include them in lecture notes or slideshows. As I understand (intuitively), images help students correlate the text with the topic thereby acting as learning catalyst.

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(15/04) The workshop yesterday emphasized upon the importance of structured classes as compared to on-the-go design (even if that of a workshop). Now here, I am only talking about workshops. An "agenda" should always be prepared in advance. Maybe the students will have enough questions to keep you busy but just in case they want you to explain things one more time, it always helps to prepare some simple examples. I made the mistake of discussing a complex example and that only discouraged the students from getting involved - there's one mistake i won't repeat. NO COMPLEX QUESTIONS FOR GENERAL CLASS! (For those interested, I gave them the question of solving quadratic roots through pass by reference)

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(21/04) Wrote eleven practice questions on http://comp115.createforum.com/ for students to help them with pass by reference. Feels nice :)

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(22/04) This is a long one so you might wanna get some coffee. Mr. Fox (English name) is a Chinese student in my class and for the first 2 or 3 weeks he was completely and utterly unresponsive. I presumed that he is an uninterested student like a few others and tried to pester him into participating but to no avail. Then in week 4 or 5 I think I called him after the class and asked him why is his performance not satisfactory and he told me about his inability in understanding me ... now I remember, it was actually week 4. We only have one lecture of this subject and no recordings unfortunately. So, I started taking a camcorder to classes and also recording screencast videos using Camtasia Studio. The other measure was the forum I talked about in the previous entry. The results are fantastic. Many students improved performance, and Fox in specific has not become an excellent student, and when I say that, I don't just mean that he answers my questions and gets decent scores but also that he has become "critical" of what I do - he questions... HE QUESTIONS!!! and that, my friends, is a good student, one who questions. Inquisitiveness is the basis of all knowledge. I awarded Fox with a PI mug in the class (I picked up about 30 mugs from a geek shop in crows nest) to appreciate his improvement. It is one of the most rewarding things in my academic career in a while. Before this, I think it was the success of a Masters student Amireh who initially struggled but picked up Java quite well later in the semester. Anyways, moral of the Fox story for me is "show a little concern for students individually and you wil help them tremendously"

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(19/05) It was terrible :( I struggled to give a demo in the class today because of unforeseeable problem in technology :( I had an example in mind that I wanted to create in front of the students but as I proceeded, it just wouldn't work. We all pondered over it for a good 20 mins but it didn't work. It was a waste of time for me and more importantly, for the students. Lesson learnt - keep a backup working demo!

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(07/06) Today was a good day for a few reasons. I got my "learners evaluation of teaching" from SIBT. and I did not have a single "strongly disagree" against my name :). The average scores were all around 4.7 to 4.8 out of 5. But it were the comments that were really satisfying. My favorites were "Best lecturer ever" and in response to "areas of improvement" someone wrote "NO, he is a great lecturer " (blushing). There was just one student whose feedback I am a bit worried about. (S)he wrote - "he verbally encourages participation but when students give incorrect/ tentative answers/ guesses, they are chided ..." It is in fact the exact opposite what i *try* to do but maybe i DO act a bit harshly sometimes. This is something I would definitely try to work on next semester.

The other reason for me being happy is the unofficial feedback i received from my masters students - my masters students!!! (they are always VERY demanding and unforgiving, having experienced the corporate life and everything). Shirren, who is by far one of the best S/W professionals I have come across, commended my teaching which is a big honor for me (in an email he said "...you were easily my best lecturer all semester...". I had two students this semester for whom I hold special respect, Shirren and Thierry. There are other students who didn't have the same level of experience as these two but I am sure they'll be equally good in 3-5 years (Kok-yan, Alan, Jimmy to name a few). Alan, in his final 20% assignment wrote "I think I am in love" while describing one of the topics implemented. This simple statement shows that your students have actually gotten into what you taught and they are taking it as a fun-thing rather than a sob-this-stupid-assignment attitude they might have if they don't understand it/ like it. That one sentence for me is actually more important than any other LET/ LEU outcome.

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(18/01/2011) I just finished marking the exams and preparing results for COMP115 and it's not good :(
Looking back, the main reasons for this might be

Change of programming language to Processing which needs a higher amount of time to setup programs and more complicated execution process (console output is TINNNNY so that cannot be used). This results in students not getting a chance to write programs in the lecture room.
Video lectures - something that started as a goodwill gesture has gone wrong I think :( Because lecture videos are available, some students do not come to the class and obviously recordings are not the same as in-class participation.
Quality of students in general - I feel that the cohort quality isn't the same as it used to be.
Possibility of improvement from teaching staff - We need to be more clear, consistent and proactive

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poha or pohe (flattened rice)

2010-03-23T07:51:00.002+11:00

i was talking to 2 of my students last weekend, charanya and sanjay, when the topic of food came up (are you really surprised!?!?) and there was some mention of poha (flattened rice) which is a staple breakfast dish in many parts of India. Indorians are quite the sucker for this magnifico dish

ingredients to serve 2:

200 grams medium / thick poha (NOT thin)
3 green chillis (optional, can reduce or skip if you want mild)
1/6 teaspoon (also known as a pinch :D) turmeric
salt to taste
1 1/2 teaspoon sugar (yes)
1/3 teaspoon mustard seeds
4 tablespoons oil
garnish (optional) coriander leaves and pomegranate.

rinse the poha in a saucepan for about 30 seconds and drain the water. you don't have to drain every single drop because the remnant will fluff-up the poha. just drain it until you start getting drops coming out.

throw the salt, sugar and turmeric on this and leave for 10 mins (you can sprinkle water on it twice or thrice during these 10 mins if you think it's not moist enough). 8 mins into the waiting process you can heat the oil in a saucepan on high and when hot add the chopped chilli and mustard seeds (some people like onions and curry leaves too). turn heat on low, then throw the poha in (you can add diced boiled potatoes and peas at this point if you want but i prefer it simple), stir frequently, cook for about 2 minutes sprinkling water twice or thrice.

sprinkle lemon juice before you have it! optionally, also garnish with chopped coriander leaves and pomegranate seeds and you got yourself a winner :) i find coriander gives an amazing flavor but the world won't end if you don't have it at hand ;)

5000 unique visits

2010-03-21T22:49:00.001+11:00

thanks to you all, the blog got it's 5000th unique visitor today! some of the statistics -

i started the blog on 28th August 2009 and in the last 1 1/2 years, we've had visits from 75 countries

top searched phrase "marathi kadhi recipe"

funniest searched phrase "what is the difference if we use onions instead of structures in linked lists?" - (WTF!?!)

we went to raavi's cumin in crow's nest to celebrate :p indian food doesn't usually get better than at raavi's in sydney (he he, i already started advertising :D)

hoping to make this blog more useful for everyone out there in the coming year! do leave suggestions as comments and request for an Indian recipe - if I know how to make it, I will post it :)

Things to do this year -

1. More pictures to accompany dishes
2. Image slideshow
3. Maybe even a youtube video about all the recipes
4. FAQ section

Dahi ka Kachummar

2010-03-16T17:16:00.003+11:00

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if you make tikkas/ keema/ tandoori chicken, usually there are two accompaniments - green coriander chutney, and dahi ka kachummar...

kachummar is essentially a salad that has been mixed very well with hands to get some juices out.

this one is similar to raita but thicker and more flavorful.

ingredients:

200 gms yoghurt
200 grams red onions cut into thin rings
1 cucumber diced fine
1 tomato diced fine
a bunch of coriander and mint
1 lemon

1/4 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon anaar-daana powder (pomgranate seeds, dried and crushed)
salt as per taste

add all the ingredients together and mix really well, don't shy away from crushing it a bit.

serve with fresh pomegranate seeds as garnish if available :)

daal fry

2010-03-09T11:20:00.002+11:00

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i am sorry i don't yet have a picture for this recipe yet, but i will post it soon :)

daal fry is a restaurant classic in india. the usual family orders are for 1 daal fry, 1 paneer masala, 1 veg jalfreizi, 2 tandoori roti, 2 parathas and 1 jeera rice :D

oh, about the daal -

ingredients (to serve 4, alongwith another dish):

250 gms toowar daal
1 large onion
1 large tomato
4-5 bay leaves
2 cardamoms
3 cloves
1 large cinnamon stick
1 level tablespoon cumin seeds
1 bunch coriander
3/2 teaspoon chilli powder (2 teaspoon for the adventurous
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
6 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
1 finger of ginger, chopped fine
1 teaspoon salt
50 ml oil

boil the toowar daal in a pressure cooker on high for 15 minutes. if you don't have a pressure cooker, use a narrow, deep saucepan and boil on high for 30 minutes in (1.5 ltrs water whichever way you boil it)

while it's boiling, chop the onions and tomatoes (separately :D) into small pieces (about .5 cm by .5cm for the engineers) and chop the coriander alongwith step (just remove the root and you're good). keep them aside.

heat oil in a pan, and when hot add the cumin seeds followed by whole spices (bay leaves, cardamom, clove, cinnamon). sitre for about 30 seconds and add the onions, fry on medium heat for 5 mins and add ginger garlic, cook for another 2-3 minutes, then turn heat high and add the chilli, turmeric and coriander powders, along with salt and 50 ml water. stir well so that spices solution cooks properly. add the tomatoes and immediately add the boiled daal (with the water). cook on high for 10 mins stirring occasionally and garnish with coriander to serve :)

Raita

2010-03-08T13:22:00.002+11:00

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There'd be heaps of Indians who laugh at this post because making Raita in India is like being able to boil eggs, pretty much everyone knows how to make raita. Still, it might be a little mysterious for rest of you, in terms of how do you get the mild refreshing aroma, what can i put in it, how thick should it be, etc...

here i have a few recipes of raita for you all.

1. Boondi raita: You can get "boondi" from any decent indian grocery store. You can also make it yourself. Just google boondi recipe on youtube. It looks like this -

Ingredients:

500ml european style yoghurt

1/4 (or even lesser) teaspoon red chilli powder

1/4 teaspoon roasted cumin powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon mint sauce OR (a handful of finely chopped mint + 1 teaspoon sugar)

handful of chopped coriander

OPTIONAL but yummmmm - some pomegranate seeds

Process: mix all ingredients together - yes, that IS the whole recipe.

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2. Vegetable raita:

The vegetables replace the boondi in the first version. The veggies should be chopped fine. You can use one or more of the following in order of preference:

a. Cucumber

b. Onion

c. Carrot

d. Tomatoes (firm)

e. Cabbage shredded

f. Zucchini

g. pineapple (it's not a veggie - big deal!)

h. green mango (just a little bit gives a tangy taste)

Vegetables that should never be used for raita are:

a. Potatoes

b. Eggplants

c. Okra :D (although bhindi ki sabzi when mixed with yoghurt is DIVINE!)

bhindi ki sabzi

2010-02-26T21:46:00.003+11:00

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today, i'm gonna include this recipe for the simple yet delicious bhindi (okra/ lady finger).

there are a couple of ways of making this delectable vegetable and there's no way you can go wrong unless you add water :D

ingredients:

bhindi - 1/2 kg
onion - 1 large
oil - 40 ml
cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon
chilli powder - 1 teaspoon
coriander powder - 2 teaspoon
turmeric powder - 1/2 teaspoon
salt - 1 teaspoon

cut the bhindi into rings of 1 cm thickness, or vertically into 4 pieces, either is ok.
chop the onions into small pieces.

heat the oil in a saucepan and add the cumin seeds. the cumin will turn whitish and then dark brown. add the onions when cumin turns brown (this should be about 10 seconds if the oil is hot), fry the onions on medium heat for about 8 mins stirring occasionally. turn the heat high and add the spice powders (not salt) with 1/4 cup of water, stirring it so that the spices get cooked properly. once the water is evaporate, the spices would be cooked. now add the cut bhindi and turn the heat to low-medium (4 o'clock) and add salt. cover and cook for 20 minutes, stirring twice or thrice during this time. best served with chapaatis, daal and rice.

mutton biryani (new recipe better, faster, tastier :p)

2010-01-25T16:05:00.006+11:00

Hi all,

I had an old recipe for mutton biryani on this blog but I am accepting room for improvement and here's the newer, better, nicer, tastier, and easier version.

ingredients (to serve 4 like me)

2 kgs mutton with bone
1 tablespoon meat masala
1 teaspoon turmeric
250 gram yoghurt
50 ml mint sauce

100 ml oil
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon black cumin

whole spices
6 bay leaves
10 whole cardamom
3 black cardamom
4 cinnamon sticks
3 star aniseed

3 large onions
10 cloves garlic
50 grams ginger

2 tablespoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon chilli powder
salt to taste

300 grams long basmati rice (don't be stingy, get the best one!)
a pinch of saffron (so that it's covers a teaspoon - sorry can't explain it better)
sultanas 50 grams
cashews 100 grams
coriander and mint leaves 50 grams each
eggs - 4

first mix the meat, yoghurt, meat masala turmeric and mint sauce and leave overnight at least (24 hours is even better)

blend onions, garlic and ginger.

heat oil, add cumin and black cumin and the whole spices and then the onin paste.

after cooking on low-medium for 30 minutes, turn the heat to high and add the coriander powder, chilli powder, and the marinaded meat. cook on high for 10 mins stirring frequently, add 1 level teaspoon salt and then cook on low for 2 hours 40 minutes

when the meat is done for a total of 2 hours 50 minutes, start boiling the rice in 2-3 ltrs already boiled water with 4 teaspoons of salt in it (don't worry, we drain the salty water once ride is done). Mix saffron in 1/4 cup of hot milk and stir gently. When the rice is about 3/4th way through (this should take 10-15 minutes, and you can check my squeezing the rice grain so that it doesn't squish completely. the meat would be done for 3 hours by now), drain the water out completely. Add the saffron mix to the rice. chop the coriander and mint and mix with rice, along with cashew, sultanas, 1/2 to 1 level teaspoon salt (1/2 is enough for most).

now spray a deep oven dish with oil and add a layer of 2 cm deep layer of rice, and then add a layer of mutton pieces. drizzle with some of the curry from mutton. another layer of rice, then mutton, then a drizzle of curry. you WILL have extra curry left over. don't dump it into the rice or else it wouldn't be biryani, it'd be khichdi :D

into the oven at 165 degree Celsius for 30 minutes. meanwhile boil the eggs for putting on top. done :)

On the side, you can serve, kachummar, and als whipped yoghurt with a pinch of chilli powder, a teaspoon of mint sauce and salt.

2009 was a good year!

2010-01-14T11:27:00.001+11:00

in terms of professional satisfaction, 2009 couldn't have gone any better (of course, it would have been great if i got a tenure, but then again, it would be awesome if my wallet filled itself, if we could fly @ 200kph, if pizzas were on the official high-fibre detox diet :D)

anyways, the three best things that happened were (in order of importance for me):

1. getting the best paper award at SIGMAP 2009 - I don't know how ;-)
2. getting an average 4.8 / 5 student feedback score for my postgraduate unit Object Oriented Technology
3. getting the teaching excellence award at SIBT and tax-exempt 1000$ to go with it
4. getting my first submitted grant approved (even though it was a tiny tiny grant request :D)

on the personal front, i got to see my sister after 5 years and one of my niece for the first time. I was completely overwhelmed with joy during that entire month.

hope 2010 can be half as awesome :)

vada pav / pao

2009-11-30T10:00:00.002+11:00

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Vada pav is the indian version of a burger. contains a fried patty of potato and some spices including chilli, garlic, cumin, salt, etc coverd in gramflour batter between two bread rolls and a generous quantity of lahsun ki chutney on the patty .

the idea behind such simple foods is to be able to eat them on-the-run - quite literally. when i was in my teens and went to bombay, the sight of labourers having two vada pavs for lunch was everywhere!

the food is high in carbs which is exactly what physically challenging professions need. also since these men and women are mostly running around the city with no fixed job location, bringing food from home is a bit difficult (not to mention, pointless if you can get a lunch for 5 Rs - 10 years back - now maybe 15rs or 30 cents).

i made vada pavs at home but instead of deep frying i just pan fried the patty. was yum!

will post a pic soon that i have on the sd card of my camera.

marathi lahsun ki chutney (the one you get with vada pav)

2009-11-20T20:12:00.003+11:00

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seriously, there can't be a simpler recipe for anything!

grind together roasted peanuts (200 grams), garlic cloves (10-15), chilli powder (1-2 tablespoon based on how hot you want it), salt (1.5 teaspoon)

THAT'S IT!

rajma recipe (red kidney beans curry)

2009-11-02T18:43:00.021+11:00

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hey :)

rajma (red kidney beans) was probably one of the first dishes i made completely by myself (after maggi noodles, i.e.). we used to have rajma, chapatis and green coriander chutney on virtually every special occasion at our place or jagrat's. so, after watching mummy and aunty cook it for so many years, i had the recipe pretty much memorized!

there are a couple of ways of making rajma and i like the one where you don't really have so much garam masala in the final product but just the taste of it. you can achieve this by boiling the rajma with a bag containing the different whole spices. squeezing this bag can later to get the most out of it, before throwing it away. not having the cinnamon sticks and bay leaves makes it easier on the stomach too.

ingredients (to serve 6 gluttons or 8 normal people :D) -

for the bag / potli -
3 star aniseed
2 big cinnamon sticks

5 bay leaves

3 black cardamom (badi elaichi)

put these in a musline cloth and tie a double knot.

rajma 500 grams

salt 1 tablespoon

for the curry paste (blend the following together)
3 medium sized onions
50 grams ginger (it's quite nice in rajma, but you can skip it if not a fan)
5 (+/-5) cloves of garlic

for the curry
1 tablespoon cumin seeds
1/4 tablespoon shaahi jeera/ black cumin seeds
1/2 tablespoon chilli powder
1/3 tablespoon turmeric
1/4 tablespoon cumin powder
1 1/2 tablespoon coriander powder
300 grams of tomato soaked in hot water for 20 min (you can soak them after you start the cooking process)
100 ml oil

on one stove, pressure cook the rajma in 2 ltrs water, salt, and the spice bag/ potli. on high heat for 20 minutes and low-medium for 30. if you don't have a pressure cooker, boil it in a stockpot for 30 minutes on high and 30 minutes on medium, till soft (not mushy).

on the other heat the oil, and add the two cumin seeds to it. when browned, add the onion ginger garlic paste and cook on medium/ low-medium for about 15 mins till the oil starts coming out. turn heat to high. mix the remaining 4 curry powders in 50 ml water and add to the paste getting cooked. stir frequently to avoid sticking to the base. blend the tomatoes but not too smoothly and add. turn heat to medium and cook for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. when the oil starts to separate, add the whole thing to the rajma and cook on medium for another 10. garnish with generous amount of coriander.

serve with rice/ chapati/ bread/ lavaash/ by itself ... it's all good!

have lots of greens with this - that's why it goes very well with palak paneer.

cheers
gaurav

mango pickle / aam ka achaar (achar)

2009-10-16T09:04:00.016+11:00

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Hey,

Sydney it all set to witness warmer temperatures of around 28 degrees and the weather's perfect to set mango pickle. I have set chilli, garlic, and lime pickles before but always heard that mango pickles are tricky so never tried them ... until now :)

went to the markets are 06:00 only to find that fridays are wholesale days. so i couldn't pick up a couple of kgs of raw mangoes. So my brain is going "that's it, quit!" but despite all my instincts asking me to drive back home quitely, I go to this HUGE wholesaler and query, "what's the minimum amount i can buy?". "10 kgs", comes the stern and dismissive reply. ok, then, 10 kgs it is...

so - enough small talk. here's the recipe

before i begin, please note that two things are most important in this process - dryness, and cleanliness. You get a little moisture in somewhere and say adios to the pickle. You have a little dirt/ bacteria on your chopping board/ knife/ hands - bye...

chapter 1: the softening process

wash mangoes thoroughly and wipe them with clean cloth. cut the mangoes into 16 pieces (or less if you like chunky pieces, or, more if you like mushy pickles). Make sure to remove any bad mangoes/ bad parts as these might spoil the party. Keep the raw (white) mangoes separate from the semi-raw mangoes (yellowish)...

add 1 tablespoon turmeric and 2 tablespoon salt for 2 kgs of mangoes. mix well, cover / cling wrap and leave in sun for a day.

(btw, the recipe i am following closely is here)

Next day, early morning, heat 3 ltrs of mustard oil for 5 kgs of raw mangoes and let it cool down. (I guess you heat and then cool it to disinfect and de-moisturize the oil).

Drain the moisture out of the mangoes as much as you can.

For the pickle spice. For 5 kgs of mangoes -

1. 200 grams fennel seeds (1/2 crushed, 1/2 intact)
2. 100 grams onion seeds (kalonji) (1/2 crushed, 1/2 intact)
3. 400 grams salt
4. 1 teaspoon asafoetida powder
5. 200 grams chilli powder (lesser if you done want so spicey)
6. 200 grams flattened yellow mustard seeds

mix the ingredients together, add to the mangoes, add the cooled-down oil.

mix well and jar for three days in clean, dry bottles.

After three days, add the leftover oil so that it (the oil) comes at least till the brim. Leave it for at least a month, shaking/ stirring it everyday - but - with a CLEAN spoon. and no licking ;) !

lauki ke kofte

2009-10-08T13:42:00.006+11:00

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holy moly, i was writing the title of this post and as usual, i was about to write its english translation when i realized it is "balls of long gaurd". LMAO! But I hope that it doesn't put you off your appetite since this is a healthy version of one truly delicious dish. "Healthy" because instead of frying the balls (ahm...), you can steam them followed by pan frying to hold the shape when put in the gravy.

Ingredients:

For the Koftas:
Long Guard/ Lauki - 1.5 kgs
Ajwain - 1/2 teaspoon
Salt - 1/2 teaspoon
Finely Chopped Chilli - 6-10
Finely Chopped Garlic - 3-4 cloves
Finely Chopped Ginger - Finger-size
Lemon Juice - 2 tablespoon
(Besan 4 tablespoon and 1/2 tablespoon Baking Powder)
OR
(4 tablespoon self raising flour)
Jeera (Cumin) powder - 1 teaspoon

Peel, Grate the lauki and mix it all together (don't add water unless required as the lauki leaves water when grated which is enough to hold it together). Done!

Make golf ball sized balls. Now either steam it/ boil it/ deep fry it (deep frying is of course the tastiest, but from health perspective, steaming is perfect!). Steam for 6 minutes. Pan fry the steamed balls so that they hold their shape when put in gravy.

For the gravy -

Ingredients

Finely chopped Onion - 1 medium
Finely chopped Tomatoes - 2 medium
Jeera (Cumin) seeds - 1 teaspoon
Oil - 4 tablespoon
Spice mix paste -
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder,
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder,
1 teaspoon coriander powder,
the three mixed with 50 ml water
Salt 1/2 teaspoon

Put the cumin seeds in hot oil and add the onions. Turn heat to medium. When they are light brown, turn heat to high, add the spice paste. Add tomatoes as soon they start sticking to base (as we don't want to burn the spices). Turn heat to medium again and cook for another 10 minutes till it thickens. Add 1/2 liter water and cook for another 10 minutes. Add the koftas and serve. Yupp - easy :)

bairagi baadal bairagi (this post might only be of interest for hindi speakers)

2009-10-07T08:23:00.004+11:00

i was frantically searching the depths of Internet for this one song from the album "Boodhe Pahadon Par", titled "Bairagi Baadal Bairagi". The album is a work from Vishal (music), Gulzar (lyrics), and Suresh Wadker (singer). The song in discussion is a particularly beautiful poem and the music is fantastic. It touches classical music in a way (though I am by no means, a student of classical music, I enjoy it nevertheless).

Ultimately when I found the song, I started thinking about all the other nice songs that are unfortunately not popular and hence not available readily. Wouldn't it be a great idea to have a platform that contains a repository of these gems.

Few of my favorite rare pieces are -

- yaad piya ki aaye (prahaar)
- aaja ri nindiya (nidaan) even this national-award winning movie - based on HIV infection - is rare to find
- suno re bhaina (godmother)
- phul-gendwa na maaro (dooj ka chaand)
- gham diye mustakil (shaahjahaan) apologies to sajal for pulling his leg on this one during undergrad :D
- o des se aane waale bataa (aap ki abida)
- saanware ai jaiyo (laal salaam) music was given by hridaynath mangeshkar)
- yaar julaahe (boodhe pahadon par) same album as bairagi baadal bairagi
- nikla, neem ke tale se nikla (hu tu tu) marathi themed song
- kaali ghodi dwaar khadi (chashm-e-baddoor)
- kahaan se aaye badra (chashm-e-baddoor)
- thirakti kyun hawa (yeh yaarana by renoo nathan)
- more saiyyan to hein pardes (bandit queen - nusrat)
- jeevan kya hai (is raat ki subah nahin)
- aaina mujhse meri (daddy (?) )

let me know if you have some songs that you have been searching for. maybe I can be of some help

cheers
gaurav

Decisions decisions

2009-10-01T16:18:00.003+10:00

Some decisions can be made with a coin toss. This one ain't one of them :(

sony w290 @ 200USD? super compact (3.9 x 2.4 x 0.9"), super sleek, good enough resolution and ISO sensitivity, zoom but no zooming in while recording video :(
or,

panasonic TZ7/ZS3 @ 300USD? super zoom (12x), and zoom in while recording video :p
but not so compact (4.1 x 2.4 x 1.3" or 50% bigger than w290)
or,

both?

(P.S. I am getting the Canon 500D which also has HD video but not zoomable while recording - ARGH!)

Help me choose! (rationale behind your choice would greatly be appreciated, if not rewarded :D)

red sydney

2009-09-23T08:03:00.002+10:00

it's the first time that a major city in australia has had dust-storms and we were both lucky and unlucky to witness it :) lucky, because, well... it's the first, and probably the only time in a long time this will happen, and unlucky because there are very tiny dust particles in the air, which means our football game is in jeopardy :( anywho, i was still glad to wake up to an orange sky :)

living alone

2009-09-10T08:20:00.005+10:00

living alone is a tricky business. not only do you try to take care of pending matters like setting up exam papers, finishing a research paper and marking assignments, there is also the small matter of "how clean should i keep the house" coz you don't want your spouse to see a mess when they come back and you really don't want it to be perfect, as it sets an unrealistic standard that can never be matched and thereby leads to a pitfall.

There is one good thing about living alone and that is that you can watch kung fu hustle, when you want, as many times as you want :D.

"How much did you miss me" is a question that should never be taken lightly - for if you do not show enough quantitative and qualitative evidence of "missing", then you better say goodbye to a couple of hundred dollars in the course of fixing it. However, if you say you over-state your "missing-quotient", it means that you will never get the space for yourself where you can watch harold and kumar again, and again, and again. But that said, Gunjan, I can not miss you more than I do, even if I try*. Please, DO read the disclaimer too before you accuse me of being mushy.

Food issues are not an issue as if you have a couple of friends around, you can always pull out a puss-face (don't misinterpret - i mean from puss from "shrek") and get dinner invitations (i hope khushboo doesn't read this else i'll never get invited again)

anyways, gunjan comes back tonight so i better tidy up the house a little bit and get set for a KFH and Harold & Kumar marathon for the last time...

Cheerio,
Gaurav

* You see, the concerned statement doesn't actually give away any information about how much I miss her, even though it gives the appearance of doing that, since it only provides the knowledge that the mising-upper-limit has been reached, but doesn't say whether that upper-limit is actually high, or low.

sunday blah

2009-09-06T12:33:00.003+10:00

gunjan's gone, soccer's over, food's ready, gaurav's bored :)

there is nothing meaningful in this post (so it IS like my any other post).
just wanted to share some events from football this morning. we had a good 5 on 5, 1/3 soccer field game and i was delighted to have saved a lot of goals which eventually led us to a 11-6 win (lots of goals, since no goalie (hands)). i am beginning to have an understanding of where the goal posts are while blocking and am not leaving gap between legs which has made a huge difference and is frustrating the opposition, especially ian, this huge german guy who, if he ever steps on me, will render me just fit to play carrom for the rest of my life. i especially loved it when ian, ralph, and hussain mumbled "oh shit!" when they realized that i was contesting the ball. (i don't feel the same when my students say the same when they see me :D).

here's a picture of another soccer group (this one is a bit more casual - uni people playing during lunch hour). should post the sunday game pics soon.

anyways, off to do some shopping now. will probably come back and have lunch outside in the park, in this beautiful weather.

you guys and girls take care...
gaurav

Baafle

2009-08-31T14:47:00.005+10:00

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The Malwa region is well known for it's lazy people. Second to only genetics, this is attributed to they widespread consumption of Baafle'.

Ingredients:

Wheat flour (aata): 4 cups
Maize flour (makke ka aata): 1 cup
Yoghurt: 1 cup
Ghee : 1 cup
Salt: 1 teaspoon
Turmeric: 1/2 teaspoon
Ajwaain (Carom seed): 1 teaspoon
Lukewarm water: as needed

Mix the two flours, salt, yoghurt, ghee, turmeric and carom seeds well together. then start adding water and kneading till you get a soft dough. to answer the question how soft is soft, make sure that it's not too wet (when you poke the dough with your finger, it shouldn't stick to your finger) and not too hard/ dry (when you poke the dough with finger, the dough should slowly come back to it's position). *Important* leave the dough for 30 mins to ferment.

boil water with 2 to 3 tablespoon of ghee and when it comes to a boil, add the dough balls (roll round balls and press slightly from top and bottom). don't crowd it otherwise, they'll stick to each other. remove. Boil the baafle for 20 minutes and put them in an oven pre-heated at 200 degrees (you should turn the oven on mid-way through the boiling process to make sure it's hot enough when baafle are boiled). Bake for 30 minutes (turn after 15 minutes) and you are done.

you can dip them in ghee if you are going to burn it off at soccer/ gym/ wherever. otherwise DON'T!

accompanying pics and daal recipe soon...

besan mirchi ki chutney (chilli gramflour relish - HOT)

2009-08-25T09:50:00.010+10:00

Hola,

My father hails from Hatod, a small village on the outskirts of Indore (where I grew up). While growing up, we used to go to Hatod pretty much every other week to meet my grandmother, cousins and uncle. During festive seasons, we used to stay there for weeks, as Indians celebrate festivals at the eldest surviving member of the clan.

It also reminds me of a hilarious anecdote from uni years. We went to the village on my dad's birthday to get blessings from grandma and it got a bit late while coming back. A physics lecture had started at 2:00pm and I entered the rather small lecture room of capacity 100 at 2:25. The lecturer, Mr. Ghatpande, nice fella, went crazy - "Who the hell do you think you are :@, strutting into the class late while everyone else is on time!!!". I pulled out an innocent face (yes, i have one of those for emergency situations) and replied politely, "sorry sir, i am coming from Hatod and the traffic was real bad".

Now, for that entire semester, Mr. G assumed that I come from Hatod *everyday*, while my house was in front of the uni. In fact, he thought that I bicycled all the way from Hatod as I mostly rode my bike from home. I distinctively remembered him mentioning to me once that Laal Bahadur Shastri (India's 3rd PM) also used to walk some 10 ks and swin across a river to reach school. Needless to say, I did not correct him. A couple of other guys got into trouble because of that; "look at him (pointing to me) and look at yourself - shameful!"(the evil application of comparisons :D).

But like all good things, this too, had to come to an end. I walked into the office of Dr. Saxena, our dean, and Mr. G was there, who started showering praises on me, "look at him, sir, this kid is a model student, riding his bike (he saw me on my bicycle a couple of times) 25 kms from Hatod every single day!". Unfortunately, Dr Saxena knew that it wasn't the case and smirked, "Sir! This rascal doesn't come from Hatod, he lives 600 meters from the uni*" .... Things were never the same for me again :(

* for those of you who understand hindi, what Dr. Saxena actually said was, "Arre sir, yeh kamina hatod se nahin aata, college ke saamne rehta hai!" (he had a weird of showing that he cared :D)

anyways, back to post topic - mirchi besan ki chutney - so what happened in Hatod was that since we didn't have a fridge, we didn't make loads of food, just enough for the meal; optimization algorithms are so freakin' popular in Indian Village - Dijkstra - INDIAN! (See Goodness Gracious Me to make sense of this joke). So what happens if gluttons like yours truly get hungry at midnight. We had pickles and everything but this particular chutney was AWESOME! I used to spread it on a chapati, make a roll and have it as a snack. If you like it hot, try this out - mmmmmm :p

Ingredients (to make enough for a week for 4 people like me :D):

Gram flour - 2 heaped tablespoon
Chillies chopped into rings - 50 grams or 20 in quantity
Lemon - One whole or 6 tablespoon bottled lemon juice
Salt - to taste (1 tablespoon for me)
Mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
Cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon
Turmeric - 1 teaspoon
Oil - 50 ml

Note that for this recipe, heat is kept high throughout the process.

Heat the oil and when hot, add the mustard seeds, followed by cumin seeds. add the chopped chilli and turmeric. After 15 seconds add the gram flour and stir continuously to avoid formation of lumps. After 1 minute, add salt, stir, add lemon juice, stir and take off the heat immediately...... Great, now I am hungry!

kheer recipe - happy birthday jagrat!

2009-08-14T15:48:00.005+10:00

Today is 14th August - Pakistan's Independence Day and my friend, Jagrat's Bday. I wish all my Pakistani friends a very happy independence day and wish that the current times will soon pass to bring back prosperity in the culturally diverse region :)

Jagrat, I wish you a very happy birthday and even though we haven't seen each other in person in 7 years, I just want you to know that you are very much missed every single day.

Now *Jagrat* was a glutton (or a "gourmand", depending on how you wanna put it :D) One of his favorite desserts (not that he discriminated when it came to sweets) was kheer. Jagrat's mum, my second mum, Rekha makes the best kheer I have had ever. Her kheer with Pooris - mmmmmmm!

Here is a lame effort to fit into her shoes. Hope it is 10% as tasty as hers!

Ingredients (for 8 people):

Milk, full fat - 2 ltrs
Sugar - 150 grams (you can increase/ decrease to your liking)
Crushed cashews, pistachos, almonds 100 grams
Saffron - about this much
Rice, basmati - 100 grams
Sultanas - 50 grams (I don't like them, some people do)

On high heat, bring milk to a boil and reduce heat to medium and stir occasionally to avoid milk sticking to bottom. Wash the rice and soak it (keep aside).

after 30 mins milk should reduce to 1.2 ltrs. remove a little milk (20 ml) and mix saffron in it. after a minute, put the saffron mix back into the milk.

now remove water from rice and crush the rice a bit with your hands. add to milk along with dry fruits, sultanas, sugar and after 30 minutes, you have a beautiful batch of kheer. You may sprinkle shaved pistachos and almonds as garnish :)

Best served with pooris :p

Image coming soon ...

Take care all,
Gaurav

Alu pyaaz ki rase waali sabzi (potatoes and onion curry)

2009-08-04T13:49:00.011+10:00

Contrary to popular belief, Indian villages don't usually have naan, tikkas, biryani at dinners. In central India, from where I am, family meals are composed of quite plain and thin daal, slow-cooked vegetables (spinach, fenugreek, pumpkin, long gourd are quite popular), plain chapatis and rice. Pickle is sometimes provided with the food but if you are visiting someone for lunch/ dinner, it might be rude to take pickle/ add salt to your food since it implies that the food they prepared is not good enough and you have to modify it (yes, it can be a pain sometimes!)

on the weekends, a richer and spicier curry is cooked, ofter for lunch since a post-lunch nap is often in order. this is a recipe for one such HOT dish:

Ingredients (to serve 4-5)

Potatoes 400 grams
Onions 600 grams
Garlic 10 cloves (optional)
Ginger 30 grams (optional)
Oil 100ml
Cumin seeds 1 tablespoon
Fennel seeds 1 teaspoon
asafoetida (Heeng) 1/5 teaspoon (really optional)
Chilli Powder 1 heaped teaspoon
Coriander Powder 3 heaped teaspoons
Turmeric Power 1 level teaspoon
Garam Masala (I think "MDH" brand is good) 1 teaspoon (optional)
Salt to taste

* some items are marked optional since not everyone likes garlic in their food and not everyone's got garam masala ready at a moment's notice. The elimination of these doesn't have a tragic effect. It reduces the overall taste, but it's still pretty good.

** Adding asafoetida or not really has no effect on taste (Not sure, why we put it in then!)
(I later got this message on messenger from my wife Gunjan -

   Gunjan says:
      and asafoetida is used as an anti flatulent
      read prevents gas
      and i have proof too - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asafoetida
)

Making the spice paste: add the chilli, coriander, turmeric and garam masala to about 100 ml water to form a thin paste. keep aside for later

Heat the oil and add cumin seeds and fennel seeds. When they are brown (about 30 secs), add asafoetida and onions. Stir occasionally to avoid onions sticking to base and after 2 mins when water starts coming out of onions, add chopped ginger and garlic. Stir occasionally till onions turn golden brown and oil starts re-surfacing. Add diced potatoes (i like them diced smaller - about 2cm^3) and salt and stir well. add 50 ml water to have that initial steam that will cool the potatoes. Cover with lid, turn to low and cook for 5 mins. Remove lid, turn the heat up and add the spice paste, cook while stirring regularly for 2 mins. Add 500 ml water (more if you want the curry thinner, less if you want it thicker). Turn to medium-low and cook for 10-15 more mins (10 if potatoes cut into 2cm^3 pieces, 15 if cut into larger pieces)

Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and enjoy with chapati, parathas, naan, rice, bread....

P.S. You can put peas (250gms) and diced ripe tomatoes (200 grams) as well after you add the spice paste. This would give you a bit "sweeter" curry.

Baked Vegetable in White Sauce and Cheese, lotsa cheese!

2009-08-03T12:42:00.006+10:00

You go to any general restaurant in India and amongst the tikkas and kormas and jalfrezis, you'd have a dish called "baked vegetable". now when you try this dish, it's got nothing Indian about it, why it doesn't even have no chilli powder in it :D It's my guess that the dish was put on the menus to cater for people who are not that into Indian cuisine.

anyways, my friends say, and being the humble guy I am, I agree, that it's as good as the ones you get at the restaurants, if not better :)

so let's get on with it :)

ingredients to serve 6 (in order of importance)

tasty/ cheddar cheese - 400 grams
cream cheese - 300 grams
butter - 50 grams
plain flour - 6 tablespoons
cream - 250 grams
milk - 150 ml
diced pineapple - 150 grams
pineapple juice - 100 ml
(you can get the two combined as diced pineapple in juice cans)
mushrooms - 100 grams
carrots - 1 large
corn kernel - 50 grams
cauliflower - 100 grams
(ok, these ingredients might serve 8 in fact :D)
other veggies that you can throw in - pumpkin, beans, potatoes
black pepper - 1/2 tablespoon (or as much as you like)
salt
rosemary, oregano are optional

grate the cheese and mix the flour with milk and cream. preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

melt the butter in a deep base 3 ltr oven proof dish on gas. turn the gas to medium and add the flour mix and whisk continuously to avoid lump formation. add the cream cheese after 2 mins and whisk whisk whisk for 3 more mins. add the veggies and after 2 more mins, add the pineapple pieces, juice, pepper, salt, herbs and 100 out of the 400 grams grated cheese and mix well. bake in oven with open lid for 30 mins. if you put potatoes, use the small chat potatoes (just discovered that's a global term!) or if using the bigger ones dice them about 2 cm^3 otherwise they might be a bit tough. take it out of the owen and put the remaining grated cheese on top and place it back in the oven so that the heating element is above the dish. bake for 10 mins and the cheese should be browned by now.

have it by itself or better still, serve with garlic bread, or lachcha paratha

please do me a favor and don't eat it with rice! hope you like it as much as i love it :p

cheers
gaurav

Making pumpkin masala recipe even easier

2009-07-29T15:18:00.004+10:00

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

Search results in this day and age

2009-07-21T15:20:00.006+10:00

This is what I got when I searched for a "food processor" at Dick Smith's website. Unbelievable

Indian recipes / Indian cooking

2009-07-21T15:06:00.000+10:00

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.

mirchi aur lahsun/ lahsan ka achar/ achaar (chilli garlic pickle)

2009-07-20T00:43:00.004+10:00

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.

Hare dhaniye / dhanie ki chutney (green coriander chutney)

2009-07-19T12:08:00.003+10:00

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 (please don't be lazy and include any stems, whatsoever) - 150grams
(cleaning the coroiander takes a while but if you use neighbours, friends and family and non-paid labour, it can significantly reduce the time, and your popularity with it :D)
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 10 hot ones (but you can reduce them to 3-4 if you don't like it too hot)
lemon/ lime (lemon is preferred) - 2
sugar - 3 tablespoons
salt - 1 tablespoon
olive oil (my own addition to increase life and add to flavor) - 5 tablespoons

clean the coriander well, we don't want any stems. Divide the coriander in 5 equal parts. In a blender, a good blender (you need a good blender, else the process is hell), add the garlic cloves, green chillis, sliced ginger (since it's harder to blend ginger), 20 ml water, mint, olive oil, and one part of coriander. Blend till it's a smooth paste, and repeat the process with other parts of coriander. When you put the last batch, also put 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

Learn to read, (wo)man!

2009-07-15T10:23:00.006+10:00

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...

Milan-Singapore Trip

2009-07-13T14:11:00.019+10:00

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

iranian zaafran rice

2009-07-04T02:37:00.006+10:00

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!

lamb/goat curry recipe (longer cooking time)

2009-06-17T11:44:00.007+10:00

Hi all,

I decided to digress from my standard goat/lamb curry recipe and try another recipe I heard about couple of months back instead. It's much easier than the previous recipe of mine and tastier as well, but here's the kicker - it WILL give you a heart attack eventually (man! am *I* good at promoting stuff!). Relax, just don't have it every other day - once a month, with a 10k run or a squash game every week, and you'd be fine.

Recipe:

Ingredients:
Lamb/ Mutton/ Beef curry pieces on the bone (1.5kg)
Oil (100ml)
Ghee (or butter) 50grams
onions 200grams
tomatoes 200grams
garlic paste 1 tablespoon
ginger paste 1 tablespoon
salt to taste
shaan meat masala (other meat masalas would do but I quite like shaan or badshah)
4 tablespoons
thick yoghurt 200grams
cumin 1 tablespoon
1 large cinnamon stick

at least one day before the cooking day, mix the meat, yoghurt, and 1 tablespoon of meat masala and leave in the fridge.

next day...

peel the onions, and blend onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger together. heat oil in a deep thick-base utensil and add the cumin seeds and cinnamon stick. when cumin turns darkish brown, turn heat to mid and add the onion-tomato paste. stir frequently (this paste might splatter so be a bit careful). After exactly 6.15239 minutes, add the remaining 3 tablespoons of meat masala and salt, and after exactly 1.111112 minutes, add the meat and turn heat high). Add the ghee/ oil. Toss frequently and after 5 minutes, cover with lid, turn heat to lowest possible, and cook covered for eternity (1.5 hours for chicken/ 2.5 hours for goat or mutton/ 3 hours for lamb or beef), stirring every 15-20 minutes. Option - for a soupier curry (I prefer the thicker version), you can dd 500 ml water half way through, turn heat high and when boil comes, turn heat to low and cook for the other half of the prescribed time. MMMMMMM lamb currrrry :p

/*
Will upload picture of the finished product soon - it's gorgeous ;-)
*/
As promised, uploading a picture :)

poor leadership

2009-06-15T14:42:00.002+10:00

i can't hold back anymore. india's out of the T20 world cup (which I don't really care about). what i AM pissed at is that nobody is blaming dhoni at all! the guy is chastizing a junior player for playing slowly who scored 25 off 35. what about himself in the previous match where he score 11 off 23 - under 3.00 runs per over for 4 overs in a 20 over game where 8.00 RPO is a par score - WTF!?

ah...... i feel better now :)

javascript

2009-06-09T16:47:00.002+10:00

i just started learning javascript and being a native c++ programmer, started with:

for(int i=0 ; i < navigator.plugins.length ; i++)

of course, the javascript programmers realize the mistake. there is no "int i" in JS, just "i". I spent 20 mins trying to find the mistake :( Man! I am going to start being more patient with my COMP115 class :)

soccer - yay!

2009-05-22T12:04:00.003+10:00

After I came back kicked in the groin (will explain later in this post) two years back, I was quite "disenchanted" with the game and wanted to move on. Squash was supposed to be my one night fling but there was just so much chemistry that we developed a long and healthy relationship. For two years, I was very slowly getting better, thanks largely to Sanjiv, Faiz, Daniel, Duncan, and Raghu (note, in no specific order). For two years, I was quite happy, having discovered the best game ever. For two years, I was mistaken.

On a cold Saturday morning last month, I stepped out to go to the markets for my fortnightly veggie shopping. In the park across the street was a group of men playing soccer and I don't know why, I went over and asked them if I could join in. The 6'7" man replied in the green. I ran back to fetch my soccer shoes which had been ignored for, you know how long. The first 15 minutes or so, I was quite rusty and even slide-tackled a 50+ man who later told me that he just had knee surgery (you'd think I'd be like "oh god! kill me now" but I have done worse things in my life). But then I started getting the moves right, starting intercepting the ball much better, the legs got all warmed up and was moving rather well. I think my strength is intercepting opposition passes.

The second game on the following Saturday was atrocious (on that day the thought of having God come down in all his glory and killing me might have crossed my mind once or twice). They made me look like a freakin amateur! We were absolutely blasted - 5 under-30 guys, beaten by 5 over-45 guys. But that just showed that we were freakin' amateurs - big deal :)

Last week's game was much more motivating. We were running a bit low on players but had a 4 on 4 start and realizing that wasting energy like a hamster on a wheel doesn't help the teams cause. Understanding your strengths and limitations, and playing to your strengths does.

I am reverting my decision and place soccer back on the top of the list. A beautiful game with minimal resource requirements and complete body exercise, not to mention LOADS of fun. Squash is also fun, squash is also tiring, but you gotta have a decent opposition...

P.S. About the kick in the groin - that was the work of a Vietnamese guy when the Viet team fought with the Chinese team and being the smart-ass I am, I was trying to break the fight up. The Viet guy took a good swing and wanted to get the chinese fella in the nuts, who was wise enough to show fast reflexes, unlike me, who was later termed as "collateral damage" by the other players :(

good sessions, bad sessions

2009-03-31T14:46:00.003+11:00

what i have learnt from the last few weeks is that a few sessions (lectures, tutorials, practicals) are awesome, most are average while some of them are down right sad :(

both the lecturer and the students bring something to the table. The lecturer mostly brings his/ her experience and knowledge acquired through,

a) applying the content in real-world, and/or,
b) refining his/her knowledge by teaching since a long time

The students also bring their own experiences in the field as well as a "thinking cap". I really believe that the best way to learn things are to understand the cause and not the effect. by letting the idea of getting good grades or the necessity to pass the unit go, a student can achieve much more from a topic. Studying at university is like running a marathon, if you waste your energy thinking about the goal, the race becomes tougher and tougher, but if you let go of the thought of finishing but try to enjoy and savor what you ARE learning; sooner or later, the finish line will be in sight.

the ultimate truth

2009-03-30T09:57:00.002+11:00

behind every successful man, there is a woman
and behind every unsuccesdul one, there are TWO

world's greatest shave

2009-02-23T13:57:00.003+11:00

I am participating in the world's greatest shave and volunteering to shave my head clean to generate funds for leukemaea foundation. Please support the good cause by going to - http://my.imisfriendraising.com.au/personalPage.aspx?SID=58176

a small donation from you and a clean scalp for me will make a big difference :)

cheers
gaurav

addendum

2009-02-21T08:56:00.006+11:00

while going through my top 5's, gunjan was wondering how come i didn't put up my "hottie" list :D. it's essentially a no-brainer -

demi moore, emmanuelle chirqui, gayatri sharma, yamila diaz, penelope cruz

while I am at it, it might as well put down gunjan's hottie list :D

kaka, john abraham, kunal kapoor, sean connery (expired product), daniel craig

quoting gunjan - "I need a lot of hottie lists, a hottie soccer player list, a hottie cricketer list, a hottie actor list..."

..........................

gunjan's idea, and i quite agree with it, is to actually have a favorite characters from books/movies/ theater etc...

mine would be dr. who, jeeves and wooster (as a pair), denny crane (boston legal), chandeler (friends), will hunting (good will hunting)

gunjan's - dr. who, empress of blandings (the pig from pigs have wings by P G Wodehouse), captain nemo from 20000 leagues under the sea, rat creatures (you can see why gunjan also likes sean connery), sirius black (who weirdly is seriously white in the movie :D)

have a great weekend guys!
G2

too much time

2009-02-19T10:11:00.003+11:00

having finished the preparation of my first two lectures, submitted a research paper and done designing all assignments, I have too much time remaining on my hands, so i came up with my top 5 list, after the conversation with chirayu regarding swades and whether it should be in top 5 hindi movies or not. thinking about my top 5 choices, I think this would be it (of course, subject to memory)

hindi movies: swades, andaz apna apna, sardar, hera pheri, raat
hindi movie albums: dil se, saathiya, thakshak, caravan, teesri manzil (i replaced bombay by saathiya)
hindi songs (individual): rooth ke hamse kaheen, phool gendawa na maro, thayya thayya, afreen afreen, aye mere pyaare watan (kaabuliwaala)
hindi actresses: smita pati, nandita das (don't care two cents about any others)
hindi actors: aamir khan

english and other language movies: when harry met sally, kung fu hustle, kill bill 1, matrix 1, run lola run
english albums: best of gipsy kings, best of me bryan adams, stripped, west life greatest hits, Abba gold
english and other language songs: djobi djoba (gipsy kings), beautiful, remember the time, in the arms of an angel, old town (wow, I come out as a real softy in this one :D)
english actors: eh...
english actresses: meg ryan (i know i know she can't act to save her life but there's just something about her, call it my guilty pleasure :D)

could someone please tell me what "doubt" was about!?!?!

2009-02-14T23:27:00.005+11:00

warning: contains spoiler
just finished watching "doubt". the movie's either

a) just weird
b) above my intellect

i just felt that the movie left too many questions unanswered. it's like trying to find the killer without knowing who was killed.

why does father flynn resign? is it because of

a) scared of getting previous wrongdoings becoming public
b) to save the black kid from further trouble
c) fed up (of streep's nagging)
d) the director had to end it because
i) movie was going over-budget
ii) meryl streep got pregnant and they
can't show that

confucious says - friday the 13th

2009-02-13T18:38:00.005+11:00

following material might be offensive to some people. don't read if you think you will be one of "those".

a man who can't give complements has trouble with the opposite sex
a man who comes to terms with giving complements will thrive
a man who gives complements and means it, is just gay...

--------

marriage is like a chair, have no clue why

--------

if you don't try, you have zero percent chance of success, if you do, you have 100 percent chance of dying (mahatma gandhi, on wasabi)

--------

behind every successful man, there's a women. behind every failure, there are two

--------

a person who can't find a job, does a phd. a person who doesn't get admission into phd becomes a toll collector. a person who gets rejected for that grows up to be sarah palin

--------

a friend in need is a pest indeed

--------

test cricket is like late-night television static. yuvraj brings the morning news.

--------

modern indian music is like a high-school passout. it doesn't know what to do so just follows the other "cool kids".

---------

saturday night debate - harry potter vs. wife; anybody's wife. HP is so f***ed :-(

quotes

2009-02-12T10:19:00.003+11:00

from early childhood, i was always a fan of quotes from personalities and other people around me. maybe it was because i didn't have the patience to read beyond a couple of lines, or maybe because the inspirational quotes pump you with a kind of adrenaline, or mabye even because you can use them (of course, pretentiously, in conversations). there's a whole branch of wiki dedicated to good qutoes here.

anyhoo, a couple of my favorite quotes are:

you are not what you show, but what you hide

the more you practise, the luckier you get

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.

We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year. The real geniuses simply have their bright ideas closer together.

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing - that’s why we recommend it daily.

When you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want "that rest of life" to begin as soon as possible (from: when harry met sally)

An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn’t take his education too seriously.

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.

When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.

We are the people our parents warned us about.

some lighter ones -

If at first you don't succeed; call it version 1.0

The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be.

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

There's nothing more dangerous than an angry man with no sense of humor

God made the natural numbers, all the rest is the work of man.

If I feel unhappy, I do mathematics to become happy. If I am happy, I do mathematics to keep happy.

hope you guys liked some of these

cheers
gaurav

masala tea (chai)

2009-02-05T07:05:00.003+11:00

quite a few non-indians are fascinated by the indian version of tea containing all kinds of flavors! Well the tea in villages uses tulsi (a version of basil which has two types "raam tulsi" and "shyaam tulsi", the latter being tastier and stronger while the former is bigger in size), fresh-ground cardamom and ginger, and i personally feel that it's the best tea ever. but in cities, the tea is made using a masala tea powder which is a blend of various spices such as cinnamon, aniseed, cardamom, a litttttttttle black pepper and clove, and more.

anyways, i would like to put the village version over here.

for two cups -

1 cup milk
2 cups water (1 cup evaporates)
about 10 leaves of tulsi
a small piece of ginger (best grated, but can also crush it)
sugar (i like 2 teaspoons per cup with this kind of tea)
2 tea bags (i like lipton)/ 3 teaspoons tea powder (if you can get your hands on it - taj mahal)

add the tulsi and ginger to the water and bring it to a boil. add the tea and sugar and boil for about 2 mins, the milk and another 2-3 mins and you have your tea :)

cheers
gaurav

OMG

2009-02-04T11:56:00.005+11:00

I had the pleasure of calling ATO and waiting for just under 20 minutes when a lovely lady picked up the phone and inquired if I am calling the Australian Tax Office; not informing that "this is the ATO"; but inquiring whether I am looking for ATO or not.

Anyways, I wasn't sure if they had my current bank account details so after going through the usual security check, I ask her, is "111-222-333" the account number you have, and she replies in the green :) I, being a nerd, request her if she could repeat the number for me please, to which she replies "Sorry, we are not authorized to give out the account number over the phone". WOW!!!!

tutorial on linked list - part 2

2009-02-03T22:06:00.004+11:00

now coming to a bit more useful topics in linked lists. often, we require that our lists be sorted at all times. even the items we insert into the linked lists be places at the correct place. so let's look at the insert function.

struct node
{
int data;
node* next;
};

now the possibilities are:

1. list is currently empty
2. the item (head->data) at first place is bigger than item to be inserted
3. the new item needs to placed "somewhere" in between
4. the new item needs to placed at the end.

now look at the following code:

node *temp;
temp->data=item;
temp->next=head;
head=temp;

if the head is NULL OR head->data is more than item, the above code works. otherwise, we go to the node (current), BEFORE which, the new node should be inserted. we also heep a track of the node before that (last) so that we can insert the new node (temp) between last and current.

node *current=head,*last;
while(current!=NULL && current->data< item)
{
last=current;
current=current->next;
}
node *temp;
temp->data=item;
last->next=temp;
temp->next=current;

---------------------------------

deletion function - similar to the insertion function, cases are:

1. either list is empty (do nothing)
2. item to delete is at head (just shift head to the next node)
3. item to delete is in the middle or at the end. (link the item before the concerned item to the item next to the concerned item\)

if(head->data==item)
head=head->next;
else
{
node *current=head,*last;
while(current!=NULL && current->data!=item)
{
last=current;
current=current->next;
}
if(current!=NULL)
last->next=current->next;
//if we reach the end of list, the item is not found
}

alu matar (gunjan's fav) recipe

2009-02-03T15:20:00.004+11:00

hey,

here's the alu matar recipe (potatoes with green peas).

ingredients:
potatoes - 3, diced
peas - 300-400 grams (really depends on how much you like them)
onion - 2 medium - chopped fine
tomatoes - 2, big, ripe, diced
bay leaves - 3
chilli powder - 1 teaspoon
turmeric power - 1/2 teaspoon
coriander powder - 2 heaped teaspoon
garam masala powder - 1/2 teaspoon
mustard seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
cumin seeds - 1/2 teaspoon
ginger paste 1 heaped teaspoon
garlic paste 1 heaped teaspoon
oil - 50ml
salt to taste

heat oil and when it's hot enough, add the mustard, cumin seeds and bay leaves. after 10 seconds or so (or before the cumin and mustard seeds start burning), add the onion and cook for 5 mins on high heat, stirring occasionally. add the ginger garlic paste and cook for 3 more minutes stirring occasionally.

put the four powders in a bowl, add 100 ml of water and mix thoroughly, add this to the onions cooking at high heat. keep stirring so that it doesn't stick to the base (if it sticks, add some water slowly). after about 30 seconds, add the diced potato, stir and cook for 2 mins. add the diced tomatoes and cook for another minute. add a litre of water and turn up the heat. when the boil comes, add salt, reduce heat to 4 o'clock position and cook for 20 minutes. add peas, cook for 3 more minutes. garnish with coriander leaves and ta-da!

tutorial 1 for pointers

2009-02-03T14:53:00.004+11:00

hey C++ nerds and geeks!

we will be tackling pointers, the most evil of the eviloparisuis brothers, the curse of the black dragon, the swallower of black holes.

int x=5;

what does the above innocent, sweet and simple statement mean?!?

that x is an integer, which tells the computer to reserve 4 bytes and the starting address of those 4 bytes (i.e. the first byte is referred by &x). when we output x, we are actually outputting value at address &x. we will come back to this later. but, right now, let's get started with pointers.

int *p
you read this statement as "integer pointer p" or simply "p points to an integer"
this statement means that "p contains starting address of some integer"

we can output value of "that" integer that p points to with "*p" (read as pointer p)

now why is it important for a pointer to be associated with a data type such as integer?
because when we output *p, 4 bytes from starting address (p) are fetched, encoded as an integer and displayed. hence we cannot copy an integer pointer to a double pointer and so on.

pass 1:

int x=5; //assume address of x to be 0x112233
int *p; //p points to "some" address
p=&x; //means that p contains address of x, which means p=0x112233
cout<<*p< 5
*p=20; //modify value at address 0x112233 to 20
cout<< x<outputs 20

------------------------------------

pass 2:

int x=5; //assume address of x to be 0x112233
int *p; //p points to "some" address
*p=x; //modify value at "that" address to 5
cout<<*p<< endl; address =""> 5
*p=20; //modify value at "that" address to 20
cout<< x<< endl; //still outputs 5

------------------------------------

the above two versions had just one statement different

p=&x versus *p=x

p=&x means that p stores address of x, and therefore x changes if *p is modified and *p changes if x is modified. This is called "tight coupling"

*p=x refers to a one time copy. value at address stored in p takes the value of x but p DOES NOT point to x actually. Thus *p DOES NOT change if x changes and vice versa. This is called "loose coupling"

-----------------------------------

int x=10,y=20;
int *p,*q;
p=&x;
q=&y;
q=p;
x++;
cout<< *q<< " ";
*p=y;
cout<< *q<< endl;

what's the output of the above code?

a) 10 20
b) 11 11
c) 20 20
d) 11 20
e) 10 11

you got it right if you answered 'd'. you see, q=p means q now contains whatever address p contains, which is the address of x. hence both p.q point to x. when x increases to 11 (using x++)
*p and *q output 11. then *p=y means *p which is value at address inside p (which is the address of x) becomes y. Thus x becomes y (20). Thus *q (q still points to x) outputs 20.

tutorial on linked list

2009-02-03T09:31:00.010+11:00

a lot of students studying advanced C++ have some trouble understanding the concept of linked list. this is either due to lack of imagination, or lack of understanding of fundamental operations. but essentially, the problem arises due to students studying basic C++ tend to memorize topics rather than trying to build a deep understanding of the same.

you wouldn't think of memorizing addition, would you? addition is a primitive operation that everyone understands to the bone. a+b refers to the outcome of someone giving you 'b' dollars when you already have 'a' dollars in your purse, or vice versa (i think that concepts are much clearer when money is involved :D). the "vice versa" becomes really important since a+b=b+a which is the commutative property. similarily, it doesn't matter in which order you get the money (a+b)+c = a+(b+c). this is the associative property.

anyways, so much so for kindergarten math. coming to linked lists now. before understanding linked lists, it is necessary to understand pointers. so please refer to my post on pointers if you think that pointers are nasty things planted on earth by the evil cybermen from outer universe. (i'm watching too much dr. who nowadays!)

(once you are happy with pointers, proceed)

a linked list is a linked collection of items of the same type such that first value knows where is the second value stored, the second value knows about the third value and so on. for example, a list of students can be encoded as a linked list (LL). If I want to display the list of students, I need to start from somewhere. Thus, the location of the first student, (to whom no one points - so sad) is important and should be stored somewhere. If the location of the first student is lost, then that of the second student is also lost (since the first student has that info) and so on.

A simple list looks like the following figure. It simply contains a set of integers, not stored in sorted order.

You can view this as ID of students standing in a queue. The person at the front of the queue has ID 8, the next one 3 and so on. It is useful to divide each item (from now on referred to as "node") as containing two parts:

1. data

2. link to next node

Thus we come to our first C++ definition, that of a node. A node is an abstract data type containing value and address of next node. From the discussion on pointers, what contains address of a node -- pointer to a node :) So,

struct node

{

int data; //this can be int, double, even another structure object
node* next;
};

please be clear that the node DOES NOT contain another node, it simply contains address of another node.

Since it's important to have address of the first node somewhere, we call it "head", or "first", or "top" or "front" depending on the situation. I call it head over here. This is implemented as:

node* head;

head = new node;//allocate memory for a node and store it's location in head

head->data=8 //data part of node to which head points becomes 8

head->next=NULL //right now, head does not contain any address, thus it's the only node

If you want to add another node

node* temp=new node;

temp->data=3;

temp->next=NULL;

head->next=temp;

Sorry, the above image is a bit too small, but if you click on it, it will open in a new window/tab and is viewable.

I can also move the "head" around so that the first item changes. This happens when the first person in the queue (head) is served and now is no longer a part of the queue. Look at the following statement:

head=head->next;

the right hand side of this statement (head->next) contains address of temp (87)

so it simplifies to head=87

thus head now contains address 87 rather than the old address 84.
thus head now points to the second node.
thus the second node now becomes the first node :)

what happens to the old first node?!?!?! it is still in the memory. so it you want to remove it from memory, you use:

node* old=head //old points to same location as head (84)
head=head->next;
delete old //delete node contained at address inside old (84)

------------------------------------

Now let us look at some more useful operations on lists.

Operation 1: To check if list is empty or not?

The list is empty if head contains no address. That is, head is NULL. Which also tells us that when we create a list, we should assign NULL to head. Hence, the correct way to initialize a list is:

node* head=NULL;

bool isEmpty(node* head)
{
if(head==NULL)
return true;
else
return false;
}

---------------------------------------

Operation 2: To insert an item at the front of the list

Assuming that the list is containing a set of items where order isn't important. We pass the node pointer by reference (that is the actual head is modified rather than a duplicate copy of head being passed to the function).

We first create a node by reserving memory space.
We contain address of old head in node temp.
We move head so that head now contains address of temp.

void insert(node* &head, int item)
{
node* temp=new node;
temp->data=item;
temp->next=head;
head=temp;
}

Even if head was NULL (inserting item into an empty list), the statement temp->next=head means that temp->next contains NULL which is also correct :)

-----------------------------------

Operation 3: Deleting item from front of list:

void delete(node* &head)
{
if(head!=NULL)
{
node* temp=head;
head=head->next;
delete temp;
}
//if head is already NULL, it means nothing remaining to delete
}

-------------------------------

Operation 4: Traverse through the list (go through the list for some xyz purpose)

void traverse(node* head) //not passing by reference since I don't want to modify actual head
{
while(head)
{
cout<data<<" ";
head=head->next; //please remember the actual head is not modified since a duplicate
//pointer in memory is there, that contains same address as head
}
}

For those of you, who still are freaked out by me modifying "head" in the function, use the following function varient:

void traverse(node* head) //not passing by reference since I don't want to modify actual head
{
node* current=head;
while(current)
{
cout<data<<" ";
current=current->next;
}
}

------------------

Tutorial part 2 coming soon to a cinema near you!

cheers
gaurav

recipe for marathi kadi / marathi kadhi

2009-01-29T17:24:00.011+11:00

my wife, gunjan, is extremely fond of marathi or maharashtrian kadi. The recipe, given to me in 2004 by Alka Lokhande (Reema and Meeta's mum), is quite easy yet simply delicious. Here it goes:

Ingredients
Yoghurt - one bowl
Gramflour - one heaped tablespoon
salt - to taste
sugar - 1 heaped tablespoon
green chilli - 3/4
ginger 1 finger sized (my finger :D)
mustard seeds 1/2 teaspoon
curry leaves about 15-20
oil 3 tablespoon
water 1.5ltr

crush the ginger and chilli

mix the yoghurt and gramflour and whisk together gently (you don't want butter to come out of the yoghurt now, do you!?) till no lumps, to which add sugar, salt, and water. mix well till uniform and add crushed ginger and chilli.

heat oil on high in a deap saucepan and add mustard seeds and curry leaves. after 5-10 seconds, add the yoghurt mix and keep stirring till the boil comes. boil for another 5 mins on high heat, stirring regularly, and then turn heat to mid (4 to 5 o'clock) and stir intermittently for 20 mins. Done :)

Hope you enjoy this :p

cheers
gaurav

ACS

2009-01-29T17:21:00.002+11:00

I, not-so-recently, applied for skills assessment (essentially that an approval of the fact that i am skilled enough to work in the IT industry) with ACS - Australian Computing Society. The application was lodged on 1st Dec and as of today, not even an officer has been assigned my case. A computing organization, that evaluates your credentials, taking two months (and counting) to assign the case to a person - makes you think, doesn't it :D

the ABSOLUTE easiest recipe

2009-01-19T12:25:00.012+11:00

hi all,

this is a simpler form of the khichdi recipe I posted a couple of weeks back. it's a shove-everything-in-and-just-don't-forget-about-it kind of recipe.

ingredients:
1 bowl low starch rice (preferably basmati)
1 bowl split green moong daal (lentil)
1 big potato - diced (on the bigger side)
1 carrot - diced
4 bowls of water
1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
4-5 whole dried chillies/ fresh chilli padi (if you like it hot!)
salt to taste

wash the rice and lentil together and get any excess starch off them. mix ALL the ingredients together, cover and cook on high heat for 7 mins, stir, then on 3 o'clock (low heat) for 20 mins.

DONE !!!!

cheers
gaurav

all in a day's time

2009-01-17T19:41:00.005+11:00

this is what i call a "clint" syndrome and occurs everytime you watch a clint eastwood movie. be it million dollar baby or the latest "gran torino". i cry during the movie at least once and think a lot after it, especially about running back and spending more time with family.

Chapter 1: IELTS

anyways, the day started with us waking up to giving IELTS exam. went to macquarie university and funnily, sitting for the exam in the very room I usually deliver undergraduate lectures. the immigration requires EVERYONE except citizens of US, UK, Canada and a few other countries they think can communicate in English. I don't want exemption because I know I can communicate satisfactorily in English. I don't want an exemption because my medium of education during my school, undergrad, postgrad and phd has been English. I don't want an exemption because I have finished PhD from an Australian university. Although, I DO want an exemption on the basis that I already scored 8/9 in IELTS four years back right before coming to Australia.

So does the immigration department really think that four years in Australia may have deteriorated by English-speaking/writing/listening/reading capabilities? There is no flaw or loophole in the legislation, mind you. It's an outright business with the geovernment, British Council, IDP and Cambridge Universities being the beneficiaries. Would it really be so unimaginable to expect the government to waive the English test requirements for anyone who has scored above a certain level?

For example, if the IELTS requirements for a particular kind of visa is 6/9, waive IELTS for anyone who scored 8 or more. Basically, your current score is the same as your previous score given that you have taken the IELTS within the last 3 years AND is one less than your previous score if the last test was taken more than three years back. Of course, the government can charge you for each time you request the scores. This will atleast save a lot of time of a lot of people throughout Australia and rest of the world. Of course, it would put a couple of people out of work, which is, probably, the universal reason for any business one can say (providing jobs to people).

I hope the government stops, what I think, is exploitation of people who want to make Australia home. Let's give everyone a fair go - isn't that what Australia claims to be for?!?

----------------------

Chapter 2: Gran Torino

There's just something about a Clint Eastwood-directed movie that makes me cry :( He is such an emotional-blackmailing, sentiment-exploiting son-of-a-bitch! Anyways, I will just say that the movie was good - watch it to know more about it.

----------------------

Chapter 3: The Gaza "war"

Of course, it's a damn war - 1188 people dead out of which 410 are children - and this is just the Australian media. Isn't that 410 children too many? Isn't that the lives of 410 innocent souls whose crime was to be born to Palestinian or Israeli parents? Israel wants to justify it's war by saying that it is trying to minimize civilians casualities and that Hamas is hiding amongst civilians. Well, if they are - too bad! You can't ethically strike civilian locations even if you know it has a few targets. It's a 50-50 split between real targets and innocent civilians; that's not discrete! that's not carefully selected strikes. Those are the actions of a fed-up team of incapable politicians and army-men who are tired and want to take the easy way out.

I honestly, don't know the accurate history of the middle-eastern conflict and I don't care to know it. What I know, and what every single person in the world should be ashamed of is the innocent people and especially the kids who died in this war. Shame on each one of us who turns a blind eye towards it and shame on Israel for taking this cowardly easy route and shame on Hamas for exposing civilians to their enemies and shame on the US and UK politicians for turning their backs on this strike stating that "Israel has a moral right to defend itself".

It's been a sad couple of decades for the global society with unipolar earth after the long-term manipulation and eventual demise of U.S.S.R. and total world domination - economically and politically by the United States of America. But I see a more balanced world in the next 10 years with China willing to speak up and not fearing the downward effects on it'e economic output and India becoming more visible to the world as well. France, Germany, Brazil and all the other "neutral" countries not letting the USA get away with what it sees as it's moral right.

I just want to say that I miss all the 410 children like my own children. The heart bleeds to know that they won't be playing in the street tomorrow morning, that they won't be banging the doors to announce to their mums that they are hungry, that they won't be sneaking up in the bedroom because they are scared, that they won't be stealing your hearts and defeating you with their smiles. Each kid should grow up to choose a path in life and no parent should have to live with the grief of losing a part of their own. I am sure these children have been taken by God in it's stride and I KNOW that they are in place which HAS TO BE better than this one.

Miss you all...
Gaurav

recipe for chicken kebabs

2009-01-04T16:41:00.007+11:00

hey folks

i recently marinaded some chicken for curry and had excess leftover in the fridge. the kebabs from them turned out pretty darn good! here's the marinade for 500grams of chicken thigh fillet.

cut the chicken in the size of around that of a golf ball

marinade- yoghurt 100grams, turmeric 1 teaspoon, garam masala 1/2 teaspoon (that's it!)

add all the ingredients and mix thoroughly using hands. this is important so that we don't have lumpy yoghurt.

leave in the fridge for 48-72 hours. take out, drain excess fluids, put the kebabs on to the skewers, and serve with sliced onions :)

cheers
gaurav

Mutton Biryani

2008-12-04T13:48:00.005+11:00

This is a recipe I obtained from some site and reading it, it sounds quite promising.

Mutton Biryani ( Pakistani) 85mins

Hot Lamb Main Course Pakistan Asia
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
240ml/8fl.oz. Ghee or Oil
2 Onions, finely chopped
675g/1-1/2lb Mutton or Lamb, cut into 2.5cm/1 inch cubes
Salt to taste
2 teasp Red Chili Powder
2 teasp Turmeric Powder
1 ½ teasp Black Cumin
4 2.5cm/1-inch pieces Cinnamon Sticks
4 Cloves
4 Cardamom Pods
2 Bay Leaves
2 teasp Ginger Paste
2 teasp Garlic Paste
720ml/24fl.oz. Water
4 Tomatoes, chopped
180ml/6fl.oz. Plain Yoghurt
675g/1-1/2lb Rice
1 tbsp Freshly chopped Coriander
a few Mint Leaves
1 teasp Lemon Juice

Instructions

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onions and fry until golden brown.

2. Add the mutton and fry over a high heat for 5 minutes, turning from time to time.

3. Add the Salt, Red Chili Powder, Turmeric Powder, Black Cumin, Cinnamon Sticks Cloves, Cardamom Pods, Bay Leaves, Ginger and Garlic Pastes together with the water, mix well then reduce the heat, partially cover and cook for 45 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, place the rice in another saucepan, cover with 5cm/2-inches of water, bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes only until half cooked. Drain well and set aside.

5. After the 45 minutes cooking time, stir the yoghurt into the meat mixture and cook gently for a further 5 minutes.

6. Place one quarter of the half cooked rice on the bottom of a large saucepan then top with one quarter of the meat mixture. Continue layering until the rice and meat are finished. Sprinkle with the chopped coriander, mint leaves and lemon juice, cover and cook over a medium heat for 5-10 minutes unit rice is completely cooked. Serve hot.

turning 28 hasn't exactly worked for me

2008-12-04T13:43:00.003+11:00

After I turned 28, I have had 1500$ loss on the cancellation of my air tickets, been fined for speeding and had a "short-paper" acceptance (that's such a slap on the face). Rewind please :)

Well, at least I got a cake from my students for my birthday :)

High-precision math

2008-12-04T13:23:00.005+11:00

I was wondering a couple of months ago about how to achieve accuracy in floating-point computations such as say, try to multiple 4.34524362 with 2.456357642456 while we know that there is only finite precision that can be provided by programming languages. A way around this problem was to save the values as strings and multiple two strings rather than two numbers - so you won't be able to multiply two "values" a and b as a*b but you multiply them as multiply(a,b). Using operator overloading, even a*b can easily be achieved. Now, what I have done so far is +,-,*,/, factorial, combinations on integers and being too lazy, I only implemented the * functions on floating-point values. The implementation works for extremely large values (as high as the compiler would support for a string - which is pretty high :D)

The math_library.cpp (right click and choose "save target as") can be used by anyone but NOT for commercial purposes.

pumpkin masala / kaddu ki sabzi

2008-11-06T11:02:00.007+11:00

This is a recipe I am posting as an apology to Eric for not turning up for the skype chat on Wednesday evening :(

Serves 2

1kg Pumpkin - JAP - the green one
Mustard seeds - 1/3 teaspoon
Cumin seeds - 1/3 teaspoon
Chilli powder - 1 teaspoon (for spicy otherwise half)
Turmeric powder - 1/3 teaspoon
Coriander powder - 2 teaspoons
Oil - 4 tablespoons
Coriander leaves for garnishing

cut the pumpkin. the size of the dices in the image will make the end product mushy (which i like). NO NEED to skin the pumpkin :) if you want the pieces to be separate at the end - cut bigger pieces.

Heat oil in a saucepan and when hot add mustard seeds and after 2-3 seconds cumin seends and after 3-4 seconds the diced pumpkin. toss so that they mix nicely. cover lid, turn heat down to 3 o'clock and cook for 20 minutes, tossing one or two times in between.

mix the chilli, turmeric and coriander powder in a cup with water so that it dissolves and becomes a liquidy paste. turn the heat high and add this paste, stir till they mix decently and turn the heat down again to 3 o'clock. Cook for another 5 minutes and done! garnish with coriander leaves and serve with bread/naan/ chapaati/ pooris (but not rice :D)

pumpkin masala recipe as an apology to Eric

2008-11-06T10:53:00.003+11:00

This is a recipe I am posting as an apology to Eric for not turning up for the skype chat on Wednesday evening :(

Serves 2

1kg Pumpkin - JAP - the green one
Mustard seeds - 1/3 teaspoon
Cumin seeds - 1/3 teaspoon
Chilli powder - 1 teaspoon (for spicy otherwise half)
Turmeric powder - 1/3 teaspoon
Coriander powder - 2 teaspoons
Oil - 4 tablespoons
Coriander leaves for garnishing

cut the pumpkin. the size of the dices in the image will make the end product mushy (which i like). if you want the pieces to be separate at the end - cut bigger pieces.

Heat oil in a saucepan and when hot add mustard seeds and after 2-3 seconds cumin seends and after 3-4 seconds the diced pumpkin. toss so that they mix nicely. cover lid, turn heat down to 3 o'clock and cook for 20 minutes, tossing one or two times in between.

mix the chilli, turmeric and coriander powder in a cup with water so that it dissolves and becomes a liquidy paste. turn the heat high and add this paste, stir till they mix decently and turn the heat down again to 3 o'clock. Cook for another 5 minutes and done! garnish with coriander leaves and serve with bread/naan/ chapaati/ pooris (but not rice :D)

Addendum: You can skip skinning the pumpkin - just dice without peeling!!! Saves a lot of time and is equally tasty, if not more :p

khichdi

2008-09-22T17:06:00.007+10:00

quite a number of people like khichdi, because

a) it's easy to make
b) it's healthy
c) it's easy to make

you really want to have khichdi a day after the following

1) all you can eat buffet
2) chocolate fondu night
3) movie night with free chips at the hosts'
4) large big mac meal because it was just 50 cents more than regular meal
5) mom visited you for 2 weeks
6) finished a kg tub of homer hudson full fat ice cream because you *suspected* it was going bad (although you just bought it from woolies the same day :D)

coming down to business, the ingredients you *need* are

0) water - 5 cups
1) rice - 1 cup
2) lentil - either split moong or toovar or mix - 1 cup
3) oil
4) salt 1 teaspoon
5) turmeric 1/2 teaspoon, chilli powder 1 teaspoon
6) cumin seeds - 1 teaspoon

ingredients you might want to add are

7) onions - 1 large chopped nail size
8) tomatoes - 2 medium chopped rather big (about the size of a "normal" dice)
9) cloves - 6-10 pieces
10) cardamom - 3-5 pieces
11) 2 bay leaves
12) potatoes - two medium - cut into match box size)

pressure cooker is best otherwise you can also cook in sauce pan with secure lid

put oil (about 5-6 tablespoons) and when hot, add the cumin seeds, bay leaves, cardamom and cloves and after 5-6 seconds or before it burns :D add the onions. fry for a while - not too much as in curry, just a little while - say about 2 mins. while onions fry, wash the rice and lentils together and keep aside. (no need to have soaked the lentils beforehand since these are the thin lentils - toovar/split moong)

add the chilli powder, turmeric and salt.

add the potatoes, rice and lentils and fold a couple of times. then add the 5 cups of water and when it boils, add the tomatoes and put the lid on.

a) if using pressure cooker, cook for 5-6 minutes on high and 10 minutres on 3o'clock position.

or b) if using saucepan with lid, cook for 7-8 minutes on high and 15 minutes on 3o'clock position

done dona done done :p

my favorite khichdi with sweet lime pickle and yoghurt

Worst spin class ever!!

2008-09-10T18:27:00.002+10:00

Warning - I will winge in this post, so stop reading now if you don't want to listen to me complain.

I do 2 spin classes a week at the Macquarie Uni. gym. Both start at 5:15 and i need to get there well ahead of time to get a ticket for the class etc. This means I skip lunch at work and make sure I get there in time.

For the second time, I reach the class to find out that the regular instructor (who is excellent!!) couldn't make it and has instead been replaced by this girl who is here from the US for the summer semester. The first time I was in this girl's class I was unhappy and so were all the other regulars but we let it pass.

But she was back again today. And we weren't warned. It was a crap class. She made us do the same thing for 25 minutes with awful girlie-pop music playing in the background. All she says during class is "good job". Even before we start the work out she is already good jobbing us. We could just sit on the bike and curse and she would still say we did a good job. She reckons its better to hold personal giggly conversations with her other girlfriends who are around her than to take control and get the whole class involved and motivated. Unbelievable! She is so breathless that by the 30 minute mark she switched to sign language and decides to end the 45 minute class after only half an hour. Umm ok I admit I was glad the torture was over. At the end she told us how "awesome" we all were and that we had all done a "good job".

As I walked out in disbelief I met one of the girls who goes to a lot of spin classes at the gym and asked her if she had ever been to this girl's class. It was like hearing myself speak.

So...I did what Eric would have done :D I wrote a long letter of dissatisfaction with dire warnings that I would keep writing long annoying letters if I had to attend another one of her classes without being warned.

Wanting to know when I check in and get the ticket that the regular instructor can't make it isn't unreasonable, is it?

Off to school

2008-08-27T11:51:00.004+10:00

Maya started kindergarten yesterday. She had been pleasantly obliviously to the whole hoopla that is kindergarten preparation till I bought the whole list of books from the library about kindergarten, "first day jitters". Even then the first day went pretty smoothly. She ran and gave her teacher a huge hug. Anjali this year has the best teacher in the whole world as her preschool teacher and the year is off to a good start:-).

End of an era

2008-08-01T08:33:00.005+10:00

Exactly this time, next week, I will be handing in my doctoral thesis and with that, my student identity over to the university. It ends a 10-year tertiary education era for me. I remember, I always wanted to be an academic, at some level, inspired by my father. But it became definite in my first semester of undergraduation when we had the pleasure of being taught by Prof. Banerjee, who is way better than ANY other lecturer I have ever come across. Infact, I don't think it can get any better than that. Of course, I can't imagine coming close to his level of academic excellence.

Here's a picture I took with him and Madam during the last trip to India. (From L to R - mom, madam, me and sir)

bad guys cooler than good guys lately

2008-08-01T08:22:00.003+10:00

It appears that in recent years of Hollywood blockbusters, the bad guys have been way cooler than the good guys; while the hero requires a whole network of people and devices supporting him, the villain seems to be a self-sufficient guy...or girl.
The best instances of this are in Agent Smith from Matrix, who was much smarter than Neo (of course, except at the end), Silver Surfer from Fantastic four (unfortunately he goes over to the 'bright' side :D), Green Goblin against the super-lame Spiderman, and the best of all - the Joker!!! Batman was just a whiny wuss in the movie dominated by the Joker. Who could forget his "Why so serious", "It's NOT about the money" and "Look, I'll make this pencil disappear ...... ta-da!!"

Go the Joker and the gang!

Bania goes to the museum

2008-07-23T12:40:00.005+10:00

The only Museum we have been visiting for the past 5 years is Children's museum, Maya lately has been showing some interest in all things Japanese. There was a Japan exhibit at the local museum 'Blanton'. While I was looking at the website I saw that the thursdays are free for all. The Bania in me got more interested in Japan than ever and we took a trip.

We zoomed past the Japan exhibit and the Renaissance, stopped briefly in front of the greek/roman statues I tried to get the kids to really see how beautiful they carved the clothes out of stone with each fold showing. They would not budge, Maya commented "how beautiful do you think they carved the clothes for this one". She was pointing to a nude...

Well, then we went to Cildo Meireles' "Missão/Missões installation. It's one of the permanent installations with the ceiling made of cattle bones and a pit full of shining pennies and a spine connecting the two. The girls spent majority of their visit there playing with the pennies. The bania genes live....

There are some pictures here.

Gaurav Gupta @ Sydney

Marathon Day

marathon fund raising target achieved

Fundraising for Sydney Marathon

Flexi-easy-chicken

Zoya turns 50 ... days

Best coffee places in Sydney

Anna Hazare and his anti-corruption movement

Best coffee places in melbourne

The Ten Curry Commandments

lauki gilki turai (long gourd/ sponge gourd/ ridge gourd) recipe

Alu Baingan Recipe (Potatoes and Eggplant)

Fettuccine with olive oil, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto, pine nuts and garlic

Amazing Chicken Satays

Butter chicken recipe

Welcome Zoya

Rabdi / Ras-malaai

memorizing... code!

Cairns - Port Douglas trip

is THAT why it's wrong!?

Guacamole - Si! Hurra, Oh Si!

Pyaaz tamatar ka kachummar (Onion Tomato Salad)

pav bhaji / paav bhaaji

Making your own Garam Masala

Pulao / Pulav

Lamb shanks in pear, carrot, onion, garlic sauce

Favorite commercials

Plain daal

Teen Patti Rules

twitter

Tiramisu

Rabdi

Why is Microsoft doomed to Fail

Best Indian restaurants in Sydney ... and worst

curry cooking tip

Reflective journal

poha or pohe (flattened rice)

5000 *unique* visits

Dahi ka Kachummar

daal fry

Raita

bhindi ki sabzi

mutton biryani (new recipe better, faster, tastier :p)

2009 was a good year!

vada pav / pao

marathi lahsun ki chutney (the one you get with vada pav)

rajma recipe (red kidney beans curry)

mango pickle / aam ka achaar (achar)

lauki ke kofte

bairagi baadal bairagi (this post might only be of interest for hindi speakers)

Decisions decisions

red sydney

living alone

sunday blah

Baafle

besan mirchi ki chutney (chilli gramflour relish - HOT)

kheer recipe - happy birthday jagrat!

Alu pyaaz ki rase waali sabzi (potatoes and onion curry)

Baked Vegetable in White Sauce and Cheese, lotsa cheese!

Making pumpkin masala recipe even easier

Search results in this day and age

Indian recipes / Indian cooking

mirchi aur lahsun/ lahsan ka achar/ achaar (chilli garlic pickle)

Hare dhaniye / dhanie ki chutney (green coriander chutney)

Learn to read, (wo)man!

Milan-Singapore Trip

iranian zaafran rice

lamb/goat curry recipe (longer cooking time)

poor leadership

javascript

soccer - yay!

good sessions, bad sessions

the ultimate truth

world's greatest shave

addendum

too much time

could someone please tell me what "doubt" was about!?!?!

confucious says - friday the 13th

quotes

masala tea (chai)

5000 unique visits