There's a sense of both happiness and annoyance at opening the iD readymade Idli/Dosa batter packet. Happiness because of the silken texture of the dosas when you make them, and annoyance because when we use the same measurements of rice and urad dal (30 per cent) and ferment it overnight, it's just not the same. Where did we go wrong?

The answer might come from Chennai-based Krish Ashok, engineer, musician, science communicator and the author of the upcoming book Masala Lab, which he claims will explain the "science of Indian cooking."