Shahi Tukra / Bread pudding

Shahi Tukra or Shahi Tukda as it is called is a bread pudding. "Shahi" means "royal" and "tukra" or "tukda" means "morsel" or "piece". So it means "Royal morsel". It seems to have originated in Pakistan. Basically it is part of the royal Moghal cuisine or rather Nawabi cuisine. It is very similar to "Double ka meeta" of Hyderabad. It is pretty simple to make and is really delicious. I have read that this sweet is mostly prepared for Eid. I have seen pictures of this sweet since childhood but it took quite a long time to actually prepare it. Must say, I loved it!

Total time taken: 1 hr

Ingredients:

• Bread - 3 slices
• Condensed milk - 1/2 cup (like Milkmaid, Amul Mitai)
• Milk - 1 cup 
• Cornflour - 1 spoon (optional)
• Crushed cardamom pods / Cardamom powder - 1 spoon
• Almonds - 6-7
• Ghee/ Butter
• Sugar - 1 cup 
• Water - 1 cup

Preparation:

• Cut bread slices into long pieces and keep aside.

• Mix cornflour and little bit of milk to make a thick paste and keep aside. If you do not have cornflour you can skip this step. Not a big deal.

• Mix condensed milk and rest of milk and keep aside.

• In a cooking pan, boil this milk-condensed milk mixture to make a thick paste. Also add the cardamom powder. If you have made the cornflour paste, add it now and stir well. Keep this paste aside.

• We need to make sugar syrup now. For this, take a pan and boil 1 cup of water. Once water starts to boil, add sugar and keep stirring. I have used raw brown sugar. Once sugar has completely dissolved, switch off the flame. Sugar syrup is ready.

• Take another pan and heat ghee/ butter. Deep fry the bread pieces in ghee/butter.

• Drop the deep fried bread pieces into the sugar syrup, keep it for 1 min, take out and transfer to a plate. Repeat this for all the bread slices. Do not soak the bread pieces in sugar syrup for too long.

• Top the sugar syrup dipped bread slices with the thick milk-condensed milk mixture prepared earlier. 
• Chop the almonds and decorate. You can also use raisins, pistas to make a beautiful and tasty topping along with chopped almonds.

• Chill the sweet in refrigerator for 10 mins.
• Serve it cold.

The best thing about this sweet is that it is not extremely sweet. The taste is just appropriate. Do not wait for a special occasion, just try it out today.