Shahi Tukda is made by frying bread slices and cooking them in a thickened saffron, cardamom infused milk. It’s a very popular Hyderabadi / Awadhi cuisine and it is usually served after authentic regal meals and is quite popular during Eid and Ramadan. It’s right on the list of top fav. Pakistani desserts, which btw also includes Rasmalai and Gajar ka halwa. This rich and royal dessert is also known as Double ka meetha and a lot of people know Shahi tukda by this name. But, enough background, let’s get started!
INGREDIENTS FOR SHAHI TUKRA RECIPE
I am trying out this thing, where I put up all the ingredients in a collage for you guys to see. Let’s see how you guys like it. So the ingredients are pretty simple and pantry friendly. (ok maybe not Saffron but the rest is) Let’s dig right into a little step by step.
STEP BY STEP PLAY FOR SHAHI TUKDA RECIPE
STEP 1 – FRYING THE BREAD
Start by cutting the crusts off the bread and cutting each slice into 4 triangles. (I mean this is THE official cut, but you know, go crazy) Ideally, in the authentic shahi tukda recipe, this bread is deep fried in oil or ghee, however, I prefer to shallow fry each batch of bread in around 1 tbsp of ghee. Most of the calories in this dish comes from the deep frying and when we skip that, viola! We’ve successfully cut down half the calories from our entire dessert. (And it doesn’t even taste any different) I just add 1 tbsp of ghee to a non-stick fry pan and add the bread slices. I flip the bread almost immediately so that both sides of the bread are evenly coated with the ghee. .
Then I just fry the bread on both sides until it turns golden brown. Then I repeat the process for all the slices and pile them up in a plate.
STEP 2 – MAKING THE RABRI/CUSTARD
In the same frying pan, add 5 cups of milk. (Obviously make sure that your pan has that much capacity, or just go with a different pot) Add in your saffron strands, green cardamon powder and sugar and let the milk cook at medium to low flame for about 10 minutes. After about 10 to 15 minutes, your milk would have reduced by 20% or more and turned a light yellow color because of the saffron strands added to it. This is a good point to check the sugar level in your milk and add more if needed. Remember, the sweetness will get diluted slightly when it’ll be paired with the bread, so you want to keep this pretty sweet.
STEP 3 – ASSEMBLING
Take out the dish you want to set up your Shahi Tukdas in. Now start adding the fried bread slices to the boiling milk.
Let the bread soak in the milk for about 2 to 3 minutes and flip the bread over and give another 2 minutes. Remove the slices and start dishing them out on your serving tray or dish. Repeat the process with all the bread slices. After you’ve repeated the process with all the slices, you will be left with a thick little mixture of the milk. Add half a cup of cream to this mixture and let it cook for another 2 minutes. Turn off the flame and pour this remaining thickened milk all over your Bread slices. And TADA you’ve made it! Now just sprinkle some nice slices of almonds and pistachio all over it and you are good to go! I like adding grind up pistachios more so that’s what I top my Shahi Tukdas with. Serve them up hot if you like. Or you could cover them up with a cling wrap, refrigerate them and serve them up later. Ideally, they taste best at room temperature. So I always take my tray out of the fridge 20 minutes before serving them. And lastly, they can stay for up to a week in the fridge!
RECIPE ALTERATIONS
If you want the full blown effect of the deep fried bread, you can go ahead and deep fry those bread slices rather than shallow frying them, although I personally don’t find any difference in taste whatsoever The measurements in this recipe are perfect to serve 8 to 10 people easily. However, if you want to make it in a smaller quantity, just reduce the measurement by half and you are good to go. Oh and also, if you like Pakistani/Indian desserts, check out my Gajar ka halwa (carrot halwa) recipe too! You will love it!
