Shahi Tukda

By Chef Amrita Raichand

From Mummy Ka Magic

Prep: 25 minutes

Cook: 20 minutes

Method: Moderate

Course: Mithai

Type: Indian

Key Ingredients:

Shahi Tukda is a rich, royal and popular dessert from the Mughlai Cuisine. It is made of ghee fried bread slices that are soaked in rose & cardamom scented sugar syrup which are topped with fragrant, creamy, sweetened, thickened milk (a.k.a rabdi) that is flavored with exotic saffron.

Top ways to prepare: Traditionally shahi tukda is made by deep frying bread pieces in ghee until golden and crisp. Then they are dipped in sugar syrup..

Cooking Tips: 1. You can use any kind of bread but white bread tastes the best. The dessert made with whole grain bread will have a strong nutty aroma. However I always use whole grain bread as we don't eat the white one. 2. I highly suggest making shahi tukda with the best quality ghee and not oil. You will get a very good flavour with ghee but not with oil. 3. Rabdi is thickened milk. Making rabdi is the main laborious task in this recipe as you need to keep stirring the milk for long hours until it reduces and thickens. 4. Air dry the bread for a day or at least for few hours. This avoids the bread from soaking up too much ghee when you fry. Fry the Shahi tukda in pure desi ghee. 5. Garnish the finished shahi tukda with rabdi mawa and lots of nuts just before serving. This prevents the bread from turning too soggy..

Serving Suggestion : Garnish with silver varq, and sprinkle almonds, cashewnuts, pistachios and saffron strands and serve immediately..

Ingredients

Brown bread 8 slices
Milk 1 cup
Khoya / mawa, glrlated 1 cup
Sweetened condensed milk 200 gms
Green cardamom powder 1 tsp
Saffron strands, mixed with1 tbsp warm milk 1 pinch
Almonds, blanched, peeled and chopped ½ cup
Pistachios, blanched, peeled and chopped ½ cup
Satay sticks 6

Methods

Toast 4 brown bread slices in the grill mode of microwave oven.
Preheat oven to 180º C.
Pour milk in a large mixing bowl, add half the mawa and mix well. Add half the condensed milk and whisk well.
Add cardamom powder and whisk well.
Arrange remaining 4 brown bread slices in a rectangular baking dish and pour the milk mixture over it. Keep the dish in the preheated oven and bake for 10-15 minutes.
Take out the bread slices which were kept in the microwave for toasting and place them on the chopping board. Cut each slice into 4 equal pieces.
Add saffron milk to almonds and mix well.
Brush the toasted bread pieces with remaining condensed milk. Arrange the almond pieces on the top end of these bread pieces. Arrange remaining mawa in the center and the pistachio pieces at the bottom end of these bread pieces.
Insert a satay stick into one corner of each bread piece so that they look like flags.
Take the shahi tukda dish out of the oven. Insert the satay sticks all around and serve.