When you add a pinch of baking soda and a teabag to the pressure cooker when cooking chickpeas, you are using the chemistry of acid-base reactions and also exploiting the ability of sodium bicarbonate to break bonds in pectin.
When you add gram flour (besan) to yoghurt and whisk it to prevent it from splitting in a kadhi, you are experimenting with the physics of emulsions. When you whip air into egg whites for cakes, you are dealing with foams
When you make a perfectly soft-boiled egg, or work cold butter into an omelette, or squeeze lime juice into a marinade for chicken, you are denaturing protein molecules with precision and control.
When you blanch spinach briefly in boiling water before pureeing it for palak paneer, you are deactivating an enzyme that would have otherwise discoloured your dish to a dull, unappetising shade of green by stealing a magnesium atom from chlorophyll
When you chop onions or garlic in a specific way, you are activating enzymes that accelerate reactions that produce more onion or garlic flavour in your food.
When you add salt to ground urad dal and rice to make idli or dosa batter, you are nurturing friendly microbial life while deterring nasty microbial life.
In short, when you cook, you are a chemist.
Today at 5 pm, I will be doing a masterclass on the science of Indian cooking for @bombaycanteen as part of their Independence Day Daawat 2021 (the proceeds go to initiatives such as soil regeneration, tree planting & solar panels). Go register now thebombaycanteen.com/collections/in…

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More from @krishashok

7 Aug
Uwe Hohn, Neeraj Chopra's coach, and the only man to ever throw a javelin over 100m did not win an Olympic medal because East Germany boycotted the 1984 games in Los Angeles
As throws reached 100m during the mid-80s, the design of the javelins changed to push the centre of gravity 4 cm ahead, which reduced throw distance because it's harder to throw something that is more front-heavy
While it's tempting to assume that this sport is all about shoulder and arm strength, it isn't. The biggest biomechanical factor in throw distance is the ability to plonk the left foot down and transfer energy via the hips and trunk to the throwing arm
Read 4 tweets
1 Jul
The erstwhile school librarian of my late father’s village, Gopalasamudram (near Tirunelveli) used to maintain an annual handwritten diary of literally everything he learned during the year. This is the diary from 1956
The list of Melakartha ragas in Carnatic music
English proverbs (occasionally with Tamil translations). Also some surprising entries
Read 11 tweets
21 Jun
Flavour memories combine and interfere with subsequent aroma detection. For instance, anything with vanilla will taste mildly sweet even if it contains no sugar because we associate vanilla only with sweet dishes. This is a trick one can use to reduce the intake of added sugars.
Adding powdered cardamom to your tea can make it taste sweeter with a relatively smaller amount of sugar. Incidentally, umami can make a smaller amount of sugar linger for longer, so using glutamate-heavy ingredients like walnuts in desserts lets you use lesser sugar
This is also why eggless cakes & ice cream taste cloyingly sweet. Egg yolks, which have a reasonable amount of glutamates let you get away with less sugar.
Read 6 tweets
3 Jun
What connects two 18th century German physicians/naturalists, the Nawabs of Arcot, and winged termites with South Indian cooking? A thread...
Johann Andreas Murray was a Swedish physician of German descent who studied under Carl Linnaeus, who pioneered the binomial nomenclature of all living organisms, a system that we continue to use today.
He was also a pioneering pharmacologist who wrote a 6-volume compendium of herbal remedies and edited subsequent versions of Linneaus’ work - “The Vegetable Kingdom”.
Read 15 tweets
29 May
A thread on food and cross-pollination
Military research regularly cross-pollinates into consumer innovation - Stainless steel was originally invented for gun barrels, and Microwave ovens invented during research on naval radar systems (the inventor's chocolate bar melted in his pocket when working on radar systems)
The reason so much orange juice is consumed today is thanks to the research of Linda Brewster, who used a debittering enzyme to reduce the bitterness of Limonin in all citrus juices. Without this, the shelf life of orange juice is very short.
Read 16 tweets
17 May
Theory: All WhatsApp messages that end with 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 are misinformation. Also ones that begin with “The following has been researched by IIT/IIM/IISc...”. Any other patterns?
If one could only use the replies to this tweet to train a classifier 😬 But, on a less snarky note, responding to misinformation with “facts” is a waste of time. No one changes their mind on the basis of facts. Especially when delivered from a place of arrogance
Listening to the @notsmartblog gave me an alternative approach. Responding with a “why do you believe this? How do you know this is verified?” forces a different part of the brain to deal with it, and is more likely to result in a less defensive response
Read 4 tweets

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