Masala Lab: The Science of Indian Cooking

by Krish Ashok

Art is and should be hard to master, but if the craft is hard to get right, then the documentation is probably inadequate.

An interesting fact: The amino acids in your own cells react with sugars over time, in a very slow version of the Maillard reaction, to render proteins in your tissues dysfunctional, which, scientists say, is a component of human ageing! Imagine the irony in the fact that the same reaction that makes your onions delicious is also the reaction that slowly kills you. This is also why doctors keep telling you to keep your blood sugar levels low.

Try adding a pinch of xanthan gum and you will be able to make jowar and bajra rotis in shapes that don’t resemble Yugoslavia at the peak of the Balkan crisis.

The charcoal smoke flavour does not come from the charcoal; it comes from the fats in your food dripping on to the hot charcoal and breaking up into several highly aromatic compounds, which then waft up with the smoke and attach themselves to the food.

Nostalgia, as we learnt earlier, is within gossiping distance of the olfactory cortex that processes the experience of flavour. We love food that evokes memories,

So, record what you do in the kitchen and refer to it the next time you make the same dish. You will realize that data is always empowering.