Meethi Tikiyan - Sweet Fritters

Meethi Tikiyan are sweet fritters prepared to mark significant events in South Asian culture. They only use core ingredients from the pantry and do not require high culinary skill to make them. On momentous occasions, Meethi Tikiyan can be made in advance as a sweet treat, keeping well for a few days.

Perhaps it is this reason why my great-grandmother, Amma Jee, made Meethi Tikiyan for her family on the most significant event of their lives. In the summer of 1947, my great-grandmother, Amma Jee, was preparing for her elder daughter's wedding. Amma Jee had begun accumulating brass pots and pans and silverware for her daughter's trousseau. She also procured ghee, sugar and flour, amongst other groceries, rationed due to the war, from other relatives, to cook the feasts ahead of the wedding celebrations. The date of the Partition of Ancient India was originally scheduled for June 1948 and my family perhaps thought the wedding would the last celebration in Delhi. However, the Meethi Tikiyan were not prepared for this occasion.

When the date of the Partition was bought forward to August 1947, the plans for the wedding were postponed and the family prepared the journey from Delhi to Lahore in the newly formed Pakistan. Concerned about what the children would eat on the long journey, Amma Jee cooked the surplus ghee, flour and sugar into Meethi Tikiyan and wrapped the small discs amongst her essential belongings. The silverware that would have been used to serve the meethi tikyan was buried in a trunk under the Peepal tree in the garden, hoping to retrieve it one day. Amma Jee was never able to make that journey back to Delhi and the tale of the trunk with hidden silverware is still told in our family today.

The moments surrounding the formation of Pakistan were of blind panic and grief. Bidding farewell to the only home my family had known, clinging to loved ones with the hope of making it across the border alive. The events surrounding the eating the Meethi Tikiyan themselves are rarely recollected, the memories too painful to recount here.

My mum managed to piece together some of the personal anecdotes from my grandmother and her siblings and recorded them in her semi autobiographical memoir The Migrants.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup full fat milk
1 cup fine semolina
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup ghee
Vegetable oil for deep frying

NOTES:
The recipe for these sweet fritters varies according to the hand of each cook. It's really about finding the balance between the four ingredients. You can add coconut flakes, cardamom, sesame seeds and saffron to your taste. I wanted to recreate my great-grandmother's experience of making Meethi Tikiyan, so kept the recipe as she would have made it.

METHOD
1. Warm the milk slightly and soak the semolina to soften the grains for 5 minutes.
2. Add the flour and sugar, and bring the ingredients together to form a crumble like mixture with a fork.
3. Add 3/4 of the ghee at first to bring the mixture together to form a dough. If the mixture feels dry, you can add the rest of the ghee. Be careful not to work the dough or melt the ghee.
4. Form the dough into a 4 inch log, wrap it in cling film and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, heat the fryer to 180℃.
6. Remove the cling film and cut the log into 1 cm discs (tikiyan!).
7. Fry the tikiyan while they are still chilled from the fridge for 7-10 minutes, turning half way. The colour should be golden brown on both sides.
8. You can store the tikkiyan for up to a week in a dry place.