Home cook Devi Murugappan continues to make muruku the traditional way

Because Devi works alone, she says she has to be very fast as she has to pipe the murukku with the mould and keep an eye on the murukku frying in the kuali at the same time. - ART CHEN/The Star

In her delightfully quaint, old-fashioned home kitchen in Petaling Jaya, 76-year-old Devi Murugappan is busy frying up a batch of murukku.

She works fast and efficiently – extracting perfect murukku spirals using her mother's 50-year-old wooden murukku mould (one of two that she inherited). Each spiral is pressed out over the back of a soft sieve, which she quickly tips into hot oil. Then she repeats the process over and over like a well-oiled machine, never breaking a sweat and never losing her warm, enthusiastic smile.