Made from lentils, these brittle discs magically fluff up and expand sideways when dunked into hot oil and turn crisp and golden brown in a matter of seconds.

Eaten along with its usual accompaniments of hot fluffy rice, sambar and vegetables, these crunchy, salty and light-as-air papadums are sneakily addictive.

That’s when two good friends decided to walk on the wild side by marrying the humble papadum with Malaysia’s latest infatuation – salted egg.

As founders of Doubly Delicious, Dr Thaevendran Kananathan and David Leo, both 37, are pumped at taking the market by storm with their first ever one-of-a-kind papadum snacks.

“I’m a medical practitioner and David is in the beverage distribution line but we were college friends back in 2005.

“Two years ago, we met up over a delicious meal of Sichuan Mala hotpot and recalled the good old days in college where we would often munch on baskets and baskets of papadums at our favourite South Indian restaurant,” Thaevendran tells FMT, adding that it was then that David, who’s always loved South Indian food, was struck with a great idea.

“Why don’t we come up with papadum chips and give it a Sichuan Mala twist?” he suggested.

So that’s precisely what the duo did.

They threw themselves into their creation and courageously marched out into the market to sell their product. Then reality hit. There were no takers.

Each rejection was served up with the usual advice that potato, and only potato, was the way to go for a snack.

With over 10 rejections staring them in the eye, it was back to the drawing board for the duo.

This time it took them two whole years before they finally came up with what they felt was a worthy product.

The research and development alone took one year and because they wanted the product to be enjoyed by all Malaysians, they waited another year to obtain full halal certification.

Thaevendran says that health-conscious folk tend to stay away from papadum for two reasons – it’s oily because it has to be deep-fried, and it’s high in sodium.

“Being in the health line, I understand the worries consumers have about papadum and I wanted ours to retain its nutritional qualities.

“That’s why we bake ours instead of deep-frying them,” he said, adding it was a tough job getting the production team to reduce the sodium content.

However, after much trial and error, the sodium content was slashed by a whopping 80%.

As it turned out, the sodium content was not the only thing that was reduced, the size of the papadum shrunk too.

Doubly Delicious’s papadums are not your average-sized ones – to shake things up, the duo made theirs the size of 50 sen coins.

As for now, Doubly Delicious has released three flavours; Salted Egg Flavoured Papadom, Sichuan Spicy Mala Flavoured Papadom and if you’re feeling less adventurous, there’s the Tom Yum Flavoured Papadom.

If you find yourself hankering for something savoury and creamy, the Salted Egg Flavoured Papadom is the one you’re after. You’ll be licking the delicious salted egg seasoning off your fingers, guaranteed.

But if your tastebuds need that usual fiery kick, give the Sichuan Spicy Mala Flavoured Papadom a go. You won’t feel the spice at first bite but it will definitely hit you after you’ve gobbled it down – have a glass of cold water at the ready because you’ll need it.

“We know there are other papadum chips out there but we wanted to bring something bold and new to the market,” smiles David.

According to him, the Salted Egg Flavoured Papadom has already taken the market by storm as they’ve recorded an increase in repeat orders – well, who can resist the combination of crunchy papadum and salted egg?

The iconic yellow pack of salted egg papadum finishes in a sitting – so maybe salted egg does taste good on everything however blasphemous it may be.

Want a bag of these papadums? Head over to Doubly Delicious’s Facebook and Instagram pages for more information or you can always purchase a pack from Shopee.