Vikash Gounder

Thai Baked Fish with Garlic Bread

It has been a while since i did cooking for my mum and wife. So i decided to visit Nausori Market and i managed to grab some fresh fish (Sabutu). So for lunch i decided to do my version of Thai baked Fish. And to top it off, my wife decided to make Garlic Bread.

Ingredients:

• Fish of your liking
• Tamarind or Lemon Juice
• Thai Coriander Paste
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Red Hot chillies
• Onion
• Fresh Coriander
• Salt
• Fish Sauce
• Soy Sauce
• Rice Vinegar

Preparations:

• Scale and gut the fish
• Wash the fish really well, pat dry with kitchen paper
• In a basin soak tamarind in water, leave it for 10mins. Once soft, squeeze to create thick juice.
• On a large tray pour the tamarind juice over the fish and inside the fish – the purpose is to neutralize the odor and soften the fish
• Refrigerate for 20mins

• Create a Garlic, Ginger and Chilli Paste using a mortar & pestle – or blender (quantity depends on your taste)
• Chop some chillies
• Chop some Onion
• Chop some Fresh Coriander
• To create the marinate, in a basin, pour some
  - Thai Coriander Paste
  - Garlic, Ginger & Chilli Paste
  - Chopped Onion
  - Chopped Coriander
  - 1tbsp Fish Sauce
  - Soy Sauce depending on taste & requirement
  - 2tbsp Rice Vinegar
• Take the fish from tamarind sauce and stuff the marinate inside and all over
• Garnish the fish with chopped chillies (optional) before wrapping in aluminium foil
• Heat oven 20 mins prior to baking time
• Place the wrapped fish in a baking tray and cook for 20mins at 200°C
• Serve with Munched Potatoes or Garlic Bread

Garlic Bread

Ingredients:

• Garlic
• Fresh Coriander
• Salt
• Butter
• Sliced Bread

Preparations:

• Using mortar and pestle, ground the Garlic with Fresh Coriander into a paste. Add salt to taste.
• Apply butter to the bread and lather with Garlic Paste.
• Toast it in a Toaster.
• Serve it warm with Pizza, Thai Baked Fish or just with warm milk tea

These last couple of days my mum and I have been really busy running around since my grandmum who was 100+yrs old passed away on Dec 25th, 2008. It is very hard for my mother since my father passed away 4 months ago and now grandmum. Lucky she has got me here with her, otherwise it would have been very hard for her.

My grandmum has 9 children; 3 has deceased and 6 are currently alive residing in Fiji, Australia and Canada. Grandmum wasn’t a Indentured Labourer from India, she was born and raised in Nausori, Fiji. I think my Grandpa was a son of a Indentured Labourer and he was 7-10yrs old when he came to Fiji from Calcutta. For more information about Indentured Labourer in Fiji, follows these links:

• Girmitiyas: The Origins of the Fiji Indians
• Indian Indenture System
• Girmitiyas in Fiji

This year would be very memorable for me, since alot has happened in my life in the last 6months. This Christmas has been a sad one for me and same with the New Year. For all the readers, Wish u all a Prosperous 2009.

Recently I bought a new Nokia E71 and it turns out it has a really good battery lifetime. Understandably battery lifetime depends on the usage of your fone. So i decided to test how long the battery lifetime will last and had intended to monitor it too. Unfortunately I totally forgot the monitoring bit and my fone was out of juice this morning.

After charging and switching the fone on. It asked for a SIM PIN which I totally forgot and after 3 failures it asked for a PUKS code; I have no idea what my PUK code was. So I decided to visit www.vodafone.com.fj and on the lower-right is a Live Chat.

I managed to get my PUK code and able to reset my SIM PIN within less than 7mins, way faster than standing in line for a Customer Service. I have to applaud their Live Chat Customer Service and the person who chatted with me was Sailasa. Attached is the transcript of my conservation:

Vodafone_transcript

Today is my first day at work at HRmonise in the ICT Park Campus, Statham Campus, Suva Fiji. Since I’m in fiji for the next couple of months, may as well get some work done and earn money. Well currently the company has 4 employee’s including me, 3 developers and 1 tester. Well as always first day @ work is really boring and takes time to get used to the new environment. Work hia is ok, mostly ASP.NET work, i will have to get used to the ASP.NET work, since majority of the work i have done is Open Source mostly, PHP, Perl, Mod-Perl etc etc.

Well i will be posting lot more of the programming stuff later on during Nov and Dec.

After couple of years of not having a Cyclone in Fiji, a low depression turned into a cyclone on Monday mid-day FJ time and was named Cyclone Gene by the Fiji Meteorological Service as category 1 which later turned into a category 2. Cyclone Gene brought Fiji to grinding halt as most of the essential services was shutdown, surprisingly the telecom services @ my residence was working fine.

Most of the residence in Fiji were without water and electricity. With the current stride, the cyclone is moving away from Fiji towards Vanuatu. Open Cyclone path picture in a new window (Courtesy of MED)

Reports are also surfacing of flood waters rising in Rewa River to the result of heavy rain in the eastern side of Viti Levu.

More latest updates on Cyclone Gene can be found on the following websites:

• www.met.gov.fj
• www.fijitimes.com.fj