An unlikely turn of events has made me a fan of paneer. Growing up in India where paneer is as ubiquitous as milk, it was a somewhat regular part of my diet but never something I was particularly fond of. Being halfway around the world from home, I absolutely love paneer now.
Paneer is hard to come by at regular grocery stores in the US, and the few that do sell it isn’t the delicious, creamy, soft kind that I’ve gotten used to from India. So I’ve started making my own, and I follow the guide from The Kitchn (which I recommend, its simple and straightforward).
Here are some notes that I’ve taken, based on mistakes I’ve made while trying to achieve the perfect paneer:
Keep more lemon juice/vinegar ready at hand than you think you’ll need
Prefer lemon juice to vinegar, but don’t be afraid to use a mix of both. My personal preference is an 80/20 ratio of lemon juice/vinegar
The milk shouldn’t be boiling, but should be close to boiling point (~200 F)
Add the acid in small amounts and stir, repeat. Stop adding more acid when the curds are clearly separating. Any additional acid serves no purpose and only adds undesirable flavor to the paneer
Curdling is quick and immediate. If you don’t see a clear separation of whey and curds, you need to add more acid. Waiting for longer/excessive stirring usually won’t change that
Drain excess liquid from the curds, but don’t squeeze out too much liquid. Excessive squeezing makes the paneer turn out dry
The weight on top of the paneer should be heavy enough to get an end product that is suitable for cubing, but shouldn’t be too heavy. Too heavy makes the paneer dense (undesirable) and unintentionally squeezes out too much liquid
airport phone call the heart leaves without luggage
- Unknown, via Padma Damodaran
I had the pleasure to be a part of a small session by Padma at The Goa Project 2015, where she talked about her love for haikus, and their incredibly powerful and vivid imagery.
This particular one hit really close to home. Nostalgia, sadness, empathy. Love.
What I was looking for can best be termed as a ‘productivity mouse’, but it is disheartening that such a category does not exist on the market. I wanted a mouse with:
higher than standard sensitivity
a large, comfortable body that I can rest my hand on for long periods of time
a few configurable buttons for commonly used actions
It’s easy to look at this list and deduce that what I’m looking for is the quintessential gaming mouse, and I’m inclined to agree: my primary mouse for the last 3 years has been a Razer DeathAdder. My purchase criteria was pretty much the same when I was in the market for a mouse the last time, and the DeathAdder seemed to fit the bill. However, my dissatisfaction with it over the years led me to add 2 more points to the list this time around.
sturdy, rugged construction, using durable, high-quality parts
should not look like something out of a Transformers/sci-fi movie
These 2 points pretty much ruled out every gaming mouse in the world. Is there something that I missed?
Me, in an email exchange (Dec 2012) with a potential employer, discussing my iOS dev skills:
Memory management is an area that I haven’t gotten a chance to dive into yet. After Apple introduced ARC, I think its become pretty easy for Objective-C developers to write applications without worrying much about memory management. Xcode does a pretty good job of managing reference counts, and I think if you don’t go outside the lines, ARC works pretty well.
Of course, a lot of developers who work on really custom stuff disable ARC and choose to manage memory on their own, and I mean no disrespect to them. I haven’t worked on something that was terribly constrained by memory yet, and when I do, I guess I’ll have to dive into that.
10 months later, I know memory like the back of my hand. I remember being terrified of the challenges that MRR (manual retain-release) brings to the world of Objective-C, to the point where I would procrastinate any task that required interfacing with legacy code (The PaytmiOS app was fully ARC).
In stark contrast, Hike is completely MRR, and though I stumbled with it at first, it comes naturally now.
One of the most underrated things in life is walking back home, after a tiring day of work, munching on a big, juicy red apple, the cool breeze stirring in your hair; thinking about the person you’d give anything to share this moment with.
One of the many moments that make life worth living.
