About Shahi Tukda
Shahi tukda is a Mughlai dessert made with ghee fried bread, thickened sweetened milk, saffron and nuts. Shahi is a Persian word meaning Royal and tukda or tukra is a hindi & urdu term meaning a piece. Shahi tukda literally translates to a royal piece of dessert. This delicious dessert is the star at most iftar gatherings, parties & celebrations. It is served as an after meal dessert. Shahi tukda is much similar to the hyderabadi double ka meeta. Traditionally shahi tukda is made by deep frying bread pieces in ghee until golden and crisp. Then they are dipped in sugar syrup. To finish off, a generous amount of thickened creamy saffron milk known as rabri is poured over them. Lastly shahi tukda is topped with mawa & roasted nuts like cashews, almonds and pistachios. This delicious dessert is high in calories so it is usually eaten in small portions. For more Sweets recipes, you can checkRasgullaRasmalaiCarrot halwaKaju katliAnjeer barfi
How to Make Shahi tukda (Stepwise Photos)
Make Rabri
Firstly air dry or sun dry bread for 3 hours. This helps bread not to soak up ghee when fried. You can also pan toast it first and then use to deep fry.
- Bring milk to a boil in a heavy bottom pot.
- This one and the next 3 steps are optional. If you want your condensed milk to be ready under 5 minutes, follow these steps. Soak almonds for 4 to 5 hours. Then remove the skin. Blend them with 2 green cardamoms, little milk, sugar and a generous pinch of saffron/ kesar. I added sugar later to the milk directly.
- The almond paste must be very smooth.
- When the milk comes to a boil, then add this paste.
- Stir and cook on a medium flame.
- Under 4 minutes, milk thickens and begins to smell aromatic. Switch off and set aside. Aromatic condensed rich milk is ready. If you have not used almonds, condense the milk until it thickens and reduces to half.
- Trim the brown sides of the bread. Cut to triangles as well. Deep fry or tawa fry or bake the bread triangles. If tawa frying, smear ghee all over the bread and toast on a medium heat. Set aside. If making for festive occasions, i suggest deep frying. We need to fry bread to golden.
Make sugar syrup
- Add 1/3 cup sugar and little water to a wide pan to make sugar syrup.
- Next simmer it until it comes to a one string consistency. If you are a beginner, don’t worry much about the string. But make sure the syrup is a bit thick and not very thick. Switch off the stove. If you like you can add rose essence now.
- Cool it a bit. Add bread slices and make sure syrup is coated well over the bread.
Assemble shahi tukda
- Place them on a serving dish. Any left over sugar syrup can be poured to the serving dish.
- Lastly pour the condensed milk all over the bread. Garnish with pistachios, almonds, nuts, saffron. To make shahi tukda, do add some crumbled khoya/ mawa over the bread. Allow it to absorb for a while and serve. You can also make individual servings by arranging bread in a deep plate. Add rabri to a small cup and nuts to a small bowl.
Pro Tips
Bread: 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. Ghee: 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. 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. So you can make quick instant rabdi by following my instructions below. If you are making shahi tukda for a festive occasion then make it the authentic way as mentioned below.
To make the dish authentic
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 bread in pure desi ghee.Make the rabdi following the traditional method & no short cuts like using condensed milk. You can find the rabri recipe here.Garnish the finished shahi tukda with rabdi, mawa and lots of nuts just before serving. This prevents the bread from turning too soggy.
How to make this recipe easy & healthier
If you are health conscious and do not prefer to use a lot of ghee & sugar in your shahi tukda then follow my easy steps:
Toasting bread: Smear ghee over the bread and toast them on a pan or grill them until golden and crisp. I went ahead by following this method. Making rabdi: Many a times I make rabri with ground almonds. This is an amazing way to thicken the milk quickly. This is the easier way but will taste different from the authentic rabdi. Skip making the sugar syrup: If you are not deep frying the bread in ghee, then I would also suggest you to skip the sugar syrup. Just pour the rabdi over the toasted bread.
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