- Submitted by Dahlia
(Shahi Ka Tukra, Exotic Indian Bread Pudding)
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On a breezy Saturday morning, as I was sipping my coffee and checking my whatsapp messages, I got a surprise message from Varsha, my school bestie. She was coming to India for a vacation and she would be in my city for 2 weeks. I quickly replied asking her the dates of her visit and made quick plans of her staying with me at my place. She was going to be at my house in 2 days from today.
I was very excited and my mind began working fast about setting up the guest room for her, the places we would go shopping and most importantly what all I would cook for her. In our school days, both I and Varsha were foodies and both of us had sweet tooth. The word “sugar” was enough to stimulate our taste buds into eating sweets. We relished all kinds of sweets, the milk sweets, the jamuns, rosgullas, halwa, jaggery made sweets, anything and everything. I wanted to make a sweet dish that is quick, easy, royal, delicious, something that can be enjoyed both when it's hot and cold. My mind quickly suggested “shahi tukda”.
Shahi tukda or double Ka meetha is popular dessert in Urdu Hyderabadi cuisine. It's made compulsorily in the Eid and Ramadan feast. As the name suggests “shahi” means royal and it is believed that it descended from the royal Mughlai cuisine. And it really gives a royal treat to our taste buds in every bite we take. Shahi tukda is nothing but a bread pudding, where crunchy bread toasts are topped with rich condensed milk or rabdi with aromatic saffron and cardamon and nuts.
My friend and her family relished it completely and were in all praise for me. I shared my recipe with her and now am sharing with all of u. Happy cooking and enjoy making this rich, flavourful, tasty and yet simple to make dessert.
Recipe for Shahi Tukda
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients
- Bread - 4 slices (cut into small cubes/triangles/circle)
- Milk - 6 cups (about 3/4 lit.)
- Sugar - 3 tbsp (for rabdi)
- Sugar - 1/2 cup (for sugar syrup)
- Water - 1/2 cup (for sugar syrup)
- Ghee - 1/2 cup
- Cardamom Powder - 1/2 tsp
- Saffron - 1/2 tsp
- Chopped Nuts (Almonds, Pista, Cashews etc) - 2 tbsp
- Dates Syrup - 1 tbsp (If you do not have dates syrup, just fry chopped dates in some ghee and use it as a topping.)
Method
- Boil the milk in a heavy-bottomed pan for about 40-45 min on medium heat stirring often till it reduces to almost 1/4th of its original volume. This thick condensed milk is called Rabdi.
- Add sugar, cardamom powder and saffron to this and switch off. Keep this aside. (Tip : You can also skip this step by using store bought sweetened condensed milk.)
- Boil the sugar and water for few minutes to make a sugar syrup. Keep this aside too.
- Now cut the bread into desired shapes. (Tip : You can use a cookie cutter and make interesting shapes. I have used a star shaped cookie cutter.)
- Heat ghee in a frying pan. Shallow fry the bread slices till it is golden brown and crisp. (Tip : You can also use store bought croutons.)
- Soak the fried bread slices in the sugar syrup for about 30 seconds.
- Arrange the sugar soaked bread slices in a plate. (Tip : Alternatively you can arrange them in a plate and pour the sugar syrup on top.)
- Pour a generous amount of rabdi on top of this.
- Garnish with chopped nuts and dates syrup.
- You can serve this warm when the bread slices are still a bit crunchy or you can refrigerate and serve chilled. It tastes good either way.
Tips
- This is a very nice way of using stale bread. In fact, old and dry bread absorbs less ghee while frying.
- You can make this dessert with any type of bread - white, brown, whole grain, multi grain, etc etc.
- Health conscious people can fry the bread slices in oil instead of ghee.
- People on diet can also enjoy this dessert by using fat free condensed milk, sugar substitutes and by toasting the bread instead of frying it.
- Pour the rabdi just before serving, as adding it prior will make the bread pieces soggy.
- A quick method of preparing rabdi: Soak and grind 20 almonds and 10 cashew nuts with sugar and cardamon. Grind it into a smooth paste and add to the boiling milk. This will fasten the thickening process of the rabdi and will give an additional rich and nutty taste to the milk.
- The dish can be made richer by adding khova or mewa on toasted sugar syrup dipped bread pieces and then chilled rabdi can be poured.
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