Singapore Cooks

Sugee with taste of home

The recipe for Ms Catherine Ruth's Deepavali cookies is improvised from her mother's version

As her mother lived in Tamil Nadu, Ms Catherine Ruth had to jot down her recipes - from curries to cookies to thosai - via phone conversations with her.
As her mother lived in Tamil Nadu, Ms Catherine Ruth had to jot down her recipes - from curries to cookies to thosai - via phone conversations with her. ST PHOTO: JOYCE FANG

An hour-long phone conversation a day was Ms Catherine Ruth's key to unlocking her mother's treasure trove of recipes.

Having migrated here from India nine years ago, the 33-year-old, who is an operations executive at an online cleaning services platform, found the spice level of Indian food here too mild and often had to ask hawkers to add chilli padi when she ordered curries.

Hankering for a taste of home, the then-novice cook phoned her housewife mother, who lived in Tamil Nadu, every day for three years and jotted down her cooking tips and recipes.

Over the years, she has collected close to 40 recipes, ranging from black pepper curry crab to prawn and fish head curries to breakfast staples such as idli and thosai.

She says: "This is the closest I will get to the flavours of my mother's cooking. Sometimes, when the dishes do not turn out well, I would wish I had learnt cooking from her personally instead of having to do it by trial and error." Her mother died in 2009.

  • MAKE IT YOURSELF: SUGEE COOKIES

  • INGREDIENTS

    80g unsalted butter

    100g plain flour

    75g semolina flour

    75g icing sugar

    Red food dye and hot water

    METHOD

    1. Preheat oven to 170 deg C.

    2. In a pot on medium heat, melt 80g of unsalted butter until the liquid turns slightly brown and foams. Remove the top layer of foam and set aside the melted butter in a bowl and let it cool to room temperature.

    3. In a mixing bowl, sift the plain flour, semolina flour and icing sugar and mix the contents evenly.

    4. Pour the melted butter slowly into the mixing bowl while stirring the batter.

    5. Mix the cookie dough till it is well-rolled and does not stick to the fingers. If the dough mixture is too soft, add more flour to it.

    6. Pluck out 20g of dough and roll it into a small ball that is about 2.5cm in diameter. Repeat.

    7. Line baking tray with parchment paper and place rolled-up cookie dough on it.

    8. Bake for eight to 10 minutes until cracks start to appear slightly on the cookies.

    9. Take the tray out and let the cookies cool for 10 minutes.

    10. Mix red food dye with hot water. Dab the back of a skewer in the mixture and place it on the centre of the cookie to create a red dot (below). Serve.

    Makes 20 cookies

One recipe she got from her mother is for sugee cookies. She is making them for Deepavali, which falls on Tuesday.

She says sugee cookies are one of the most fuss-free festive confections to make - they can be rolled out in 15 minutes.

She has made some tweaks to her mother's recipe. Instead of store- bought ghee, she uses melted unsalted butter as it gives a stronger aroma. Other changes include adding almond powder, ground cashew nuts and raisins for more bite.

Getting the baking time right is also crucial for the cookies to achieve a velvety melt-in-your- mouth texture reminiscent of a crumbly shortbread and a pale white facade.

Bake the cookies for two minutes longer and they turn slightly brown and crispy, says Ms Catherine, who is married to a 36-year-old software engineer and has a four-year-old daughter.

She dabs each cookie with red food dye to make it "more visually pleasing".

Besides sugee cookies, she also makes other festive goodies such as mysore pak (a sweet made with ghee, gram flour and sugar), ladoo (ball-shaped flour and ghee-based confection), jalebi (deep-fried wheat flour batter soaked in saffron sugar syrup), muruku and butter vanilla cakes.

She bakes about 15 containers of goodies a week before Deepavali. In the past eight years, she has been distributing these "goodie bags" to her friends when she visits them during the festival.

She also enjoys wearing a new sari and cooking with her friends and their families.

And they do cook up a storm - about 15 dishes, such as chicken briyani, mutton curry, onion raita, palak paneer and kesari dessert, for up to 30 people.

The gathering usually ends with adults and children playing with sparklers.

The convivial atmosphere brings back memories of Deepavali celebrations in her hometown.

"Although we are far away from our relatives, I want my daughter to know more about her culture and follow the tradition of bonding with friends and family," she says.

Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Sunday Times on November 01, 2015, with the headline Sugee with taste of home . Subscribe