Bettina's Gera's second-floor flat in Caranzalem, a leafy suburb of Panaji, the capital of Goa, might seem an unlikely place for a cooking class. The small south Indian state is known, these days, more for its crowded beaches, pulsing nightlife, and flocks of backpackers than for the eponymous curry that adorns the menus of Indian restaurants worldwide.
It took about an hour to drive from the quiet stretch of spare white beach where I was staying in north Goa down to Panaji, but it's a scenic trip: we passed kilometres of lush green rice paddies, and wound our way through little towns dotted with dilapidated old villas, corner shops housed in 200-year-old buildings, and crumbling 18th-century churches - a reminder that Goa had been a Portuguese colony, and remained so until 1961, 14 years after the rest of India became an independent nation.
As we entered Panaji, the taxi squeezed past the cows, motorbikes and rickshaws that clogged the road. When we pulled up in front of Gera's building just before noon I was hungry and close to an hour late. But my host, a small talkative woman with short wavy black hair, dressed in blue jeans and a pink T-shirt, was unfazed. We sat down for a cup of hot tea and a chat in her living room before the cooking got underway.
I had come to Gera to learn the basics of Indian cooking. From her flat, an airy three-bedroom with rust-coloured tile floors and a corner cabinet that houses her collection of bells from around the world, ("there is one from Egypt, many from Britain, even one from Barcelona," she tells me) Gera teaches cooking classes four days a week during the "season", which runs from October to March.
Her classes are intimate and personal: she refuses to have more than four people at once, because she wants to keep things small, and besides, her table couldn't seat many more. But finding her is not easy - to say that she is off the beaten path is an understatement. She is not listed in guide books and her business has grown by word of mouth. These days most clients come from two boutique hotels nearby. I was staying at one of them, a secluded collection of colonial houses on a spit of quiet beach, called Elsewhere.
Owned by the Indian fashion photographer Denzil Sequeira, whose family has had the property since 1886, Elsewhere is an improbably placid escape from the crowds elsewhere in Goa, and when I asked the manager to recommend cooking classes, she put me in touch with Bettina Gera.
At her flat, Gera can teach you how to make just about anything, and she will take you to the market in nearby Mapusa to shop for ingredients - in the event that you, like me, cannot identify bitter gourd, that mysterious long bumpy green vegetable, or tamarind, a staple of Indian cooking.
The market is a hectic scene - big and dusty and filled with locals hawking everything from vegetables and spices to the giant green glass bottles that the Portuguese used to transport liquor to Goa a century ago. (The empty bottle that I purchased caused much consternation at customs upon my departure a few days later.) Bettina advises me against buying anything that comes from an open bin and instead points me towards a cluttered shop that sells spices in containers and little packages of ready-made curry paste.
As our lesson began in the kitchen, small plastic bowls of moist chopped onions and bright green chilies were laid out on the counter and a clean frying pan sat on the small electric stove. Bettina had done all the prep work before we arrived, making the process seem deceptively easy. "Of course we are known for our prawn curry," she says as we get started. And that's what I'm here to learn how to make, on this unseasonably hot day in late October. It's the most popular dish for Gera's students, she says. "Mostly people want to learn to make curry or fried fish."
But, Gera continues, Goa is also known for its vindaloo and chicken cafreal, and today we'll also learn how to make the latter. She slathers the chicken in lime juice and salt and sets it aside to rest. "Everybody does it differently," she says when I tell her that I'd eaten chicken cafreal at a restaurant a few nights earlier, a dark and narrow place with a distinctly European feel that's been serving travellers in Goa for decades.
She nods and grinds up the ingredients for the chicken marinade until it becomes a fine green paste. She stops and asks me to have a good look. Then she slathers it all over the chicken and moves it to her small refrigerator.
Now she turns her attention to the prawn curry. We begin with the masala - the paste that flavors the curry. She mixes together freshly grated coconut, red chilli peppers, coriander, cumin, garlic and peppercorns, pulses them in a small blender, and then pushes the resulting mash through a plastic sieve, talking all the time. She stops and tells me to smell the mixture. It is potent. She repeats the process several times until we have two cups of a liquid that looks a bit like Pepto Bismol - this is the base of the curry.
As we cook, she lays on wisdom of the sort not found in a cookery book but passed down within families. "Without tamarind your curry will be flat," Gera says as she holds up a small mixing bowl in which sticky brown tamarind pulp is dissolving in a cupful of water. She stirs the brown liquid furiously and continues to dole out advice. "You can not substitute it with anything," she says. "Turmeric is a must in all our cooking," she continues, as she adds somewhere between a teaspoon and a tablespoon of powder the colour of sunflowers in the small bubbling pot of prawn curry. "And it is an antiseptic."
Now that the tumeric is in, she brings the curry to a boil. Then she reduces the heat to low and dumps in two big handfuls of prawns and the tamarind. "Never put a lid on it," she says as she stirs the curry. "You will ruin your prawns."
She turns her attention back to the chicken cafreal which has been marinating for half an hour. She heats a few tablespoons of oil in a big frying pan and browns the chicken. Then she adds the marinade and leaves the meat cooking on the stove.
Gera makes everything look easier than it is - a trait of any experienced cook - and when I leave her house I know I will think that making a prawn curry is as easy as a salad.
As we sit at her dining room table waiting for the big fragrant pot of deep red curry to cook, Gera offers us a glass of guava juice and we move back into the dining room. She explains why food in the south of India is so different from that of the rest of the country. "All our curries are coconut-based," she says, and asks whether I have noticed the coconut trees. Indeed, coconut palms are everywhere in Goa. Back at Elsewhere, we see them on the marshy ground around our little villa. "It's only southern India that is coconut-based; even when we do stir-fried vegetables we add coconut."
As we sit chatting, Gera tells us about her past. She was raised in Uganda but left when the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin expelled the country's 50,000 Indians in 1972. She went first to the UK before eventually making her way back to her ancestral home, Goa, in the 1980s, where she worked as a travel agent. She was never trained professionally as a chef but she knows her way around the kitchen: in the 1990s, she ran a restaurant in Goa, the Soft Rock Cafe, which she said served a kind of "fusion" of Indian and western cuisines.
Though she likes to make traditional Goan food, she says "fusion" is her speciality - according to Gera, when her son's friends come for dinner on Sundays, they always want roast chicken. "Aneesh's friends like my roast chicken, which is not made the Goan way."
As we sit down to eat, Gera's two small dogs, Toto and Titch, emerge looking for table scraps. She shoos them away as I reach for the prawn curry and rice.
"You should eat the Goan way," she says. "You have chicken and vegetables first, and then you have curry and rice.
"Since you are in a Goan house, you should do it the traditional way."
To book cooking lessons with Bettina Gera, e-mail bettinacaprius_b@yahoo.com or telephone 0091 832 246 5264
klewis@thenational.ae
Credit Score explained
What is a credit score?
In the UAE your credit score is a number generated by the Al Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB), which represents your credit worthiness – in other words, your risk of defaulting on any debt repayments. In this country, the number is between 300 and 900. A low score indicates a higher risk of default, while a high score indicates you are a lower risk.
Why is it important?
Financial institutions will use it to decide whether or not you are a credit risk. Those with better scores may also receive preferential interest rates or terms on products such as loans, credit cards and mortgages.
How is it calculated?
The AECB collects information on your payment behaviour from banks as well as utilitiy and telecoms providers.
How can I improve my score?
By paying your bills on time and not missing any repayments, particularly your loan, credit card and mortgage payments. It is also wise to limit the number of credit card and loan applications you make and to reduce your outstanding balances.
How do I know if my score is low or high?
By checking it. Visit one of AECB’s Customer Happiness Centres with an original and valid Emirates ID, passport copy and valid email address. Liv. customers can also access the score directly from the banking app.
How much does it cost?
A credit report costs Dh100 while a report with the score included costs Dh150. Those only wanting the credit score pay Dh60. VAT is payable on top.
F1 drivers' standings
1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes 281
2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari 247
3. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes 222
4. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull 177
5. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari 138
6. Max Verstappen, Red Bull 93
7. Sergio Perez, Force India 86
8. Esteban Ocon, Force India 56
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
New process leads to panic among jobseekers
As a UAE-based travel agent who processes tourist visas from the Philippines, Jennifer Pacia Gado is fielding a lot of calls from concerned travellers just now. And they are all asking the same question.
“My clients are mostly Filipinos, and they [all want to know] about good conduct certificates,” says the 34-year-old Filipina, who has lived in the UAE for five years.
Ms Gado contacted the Philippines Embassy to get more information on the certificate so she can share it with her clients. She says many are worried about the process and associated costs – which could be as high as Dh500 to obtain and attest a good conduct certificate from the Philippines for jobseekers already living in the UAE.
“They are worried about this because when they arrive here without the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] clearance, it is a hassle because it takes time,” she says.
“They need to go first to the embassy to apply for the application of the NBI clearance. After that they have go to the police station [in the UAE] for the fingerprints. And then they will apply for the special power of attorney so that someone can finish the process in the Philippines. So it is a long process and more expensive if you are doing it from here.”
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
Army of the Dead
Director: Zack Snyder
Stars: Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell, Omari Hardwick, Ana de la Reguera
Three stars
The low down
Producers: Uniglobe Entertainment & Vision Films
Director: Namrata Singh Gujral
Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Nargis Fakhri, Bo Derek, Candy Clark
Rating: 2/5
Company%20profile
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Anna and the Apocalypse
Director: John McPhail
Starring: Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming, Mark Benton
Three stars
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
Essentials
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct from the UAE to Geneva from Dh2,845 return, including taxes. The flight takes 6 hours.
The package
Clinique La Prairie offers a variety of programmes. A six-night Master Detox costs from 14,900 Swiss francs (Dh57,655), including all food, accommodation and a set schedule of medical consultations and spa treatments.
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The most expensive investment mistake you will ever make
When is the best time to start saving in a pension? The answer is simple – at the earliest possible moment. The first pound, euro, dollar or dirham you invest is the most valuable, as it has so much longer to grow in value. If you start in your twenties, it could be invested for 40 years or more, which means you have decades for compound interest to work its magic.
“You get growth upon growth upon growth, followed by more growth. The earlier you start the process, the more it will all roll up,” says Chris Davies, chartered financial planner at The Fry Group in Dubai.
This table shows how much you would have in your pension at age 65, depending on when you start and how much you pay in (it assumes your investments grow 7 per cent a year after charges and you have no other savings).
|
Age
|
$250 a month
|
$500 a month
|
$1,000 a month
|
|
25
|
$640,829
|
$1,281,657
|
$2,563,315
|
|
35
|
$303,219
|
$606,439
|
$1,212,877
|
|
45
|
$131,596
|
$263,191
|
$526,382
|
|
55
|
$44,351
|
$88,702
|
$177,403
|
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
Dubai World Cup Carnival card
6.30pm: Al Maktoum Challenge Round-2 Group 1 (PA) US$75,000 (Dirt) 1,900m
7.05pm: Al Rashidiya Group 2 (TB) $250,000 (Turf) 1,800m
7.40pm: Meydan Cup Listed Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 2,810m
8.15pm: Handicap (TB) $175,000 (D) 1,600m
8.50pm: Handicap (TB) $135,000 (T) 1,600m
9.25pm: Al Shindagha Sprint Group 3 (TB) $200,000 (D) 1,200m
10pm: Handicap (TB) $135,000 (T) 2,000m
The National selections:
6.30pm - Ziyadd; 7.05pm - Barney Roy; 7.40pm - Dee Ex Bee; 8.15pm - Dubai Legacy; 8.50pm - Good Fortune; 9.25pm - Drafted; 10pm - Simsir
Meydan race card
6pm Dubai Trophy – Conditions(TB) $100,000 (Turf) 1,200m
6.35Dubai Trophy – Conditions(TB) $100,000 (Turf) 1,200m
1,800m
7.10pm Jumeirah Derby Trial – Conditions (TB) $60,000 (T)
1,800m ,400m
7.45pm Al Rashidiya – Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,800m
8.20pm Al Fahidi Fort – Group 2 (TB) $180,000 (T) 1,400m
8.55pm Dubawi Stakes – Group 3 (TB) $150,000 (D) 1,200m
9.30pm Aliyah – Rated Conditions (TB) $80,000 (D) 2,000m
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Mumbai Indians 213/6 (20 ov)
Royal Challengers Bangalore 167/8 (20 ov)
Asia%20Cup%202022
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Company Profile
Company name: OneOrder
Started: October 2021
Founders: Tamer Amer and Karim Maurice
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Industry: technology, logistics
Investors: A15 and self-funded
Netherlands v UAE, Twenty20 International series
Saturday, August 3 - First T20i, Amstelveen
Monday, August 5 – Second T20i, Amstelveen
Tuesday, August 6 – Third T20i, Voorburg
Thursday, August 8 – Fourth T20i, Vooryburg
The years Ramadan fell in May
Virtuzone GCC Sixes
Date and venue Friday and Saturday, ICC Academy, Dubai Sports City
Time Matches start at 9am
Groups
A Blighty Ducks, Darjeeling Colts, Darjeeling Social, Dubai Wombats; B Darjeeling Veterans, Kuwait Casuals, Loose Cannons, Savannah Lions; C Awali Taverners, Darjeeling, Dromedary, Darjeeling Good Eggs
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
UAE v Gibraltar
What: International friendly
When: 7pm kick off
Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City
Admission: Free
Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page
UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)
The biog
Favourite food: Fish and seafood
Favourite hobby: Socialising with friends
Favourite quote: You only get out what you put in!
Favourite country to visit: Italy
Favourite film: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Family: We all have one!
Company%20Profile
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The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Set-jetting on the Emerald Isle
Other shows filmed in Ireland include: Vikings (County Wicklow), The Fall (Belfast), Line of Duty (Belfast), Penny Dreadful (Dublin), Ripper Street (Dublin), Krypton (Belfast)
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
