Sweet Dishes

SHAHI TUKRA
Ingredients:

Milk - 1 litre
Bread slices - 4-6
Condensed Milk - 2-3 tbsps
Heavy cream - 1/4th of a cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Jaggery - 1/2 cup
Ghee - 4 tbsps
Cardamon powder - 2 tsps
Saffron - 1 tsp
Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp
Raisins - to garnish
Almonds - to garnish
Cashews - to garnish

Ingredients: bread, almonds, cashews and raisins

Method:

* Combine milk, condensed milk, sugar and jaggery. Bring it to boil and reduce heat to medium.
* Keep simmering until the milk gets thickened. This might take close to 30 minutes.
* In the mean time, tava roast the bread slices with ghee on both sides. Take care not to burn.
* Reserve a table spoon of ghee and use the rest to fry the almonds, raisins and cashews.
* Add cardomon to the milk mixture and let it cool.
* Layer the bread at the bottom of a flat pan. Pour some milk to immerse it completely.
* Repeat the process until all the bread and milk are used up.
* Garnish with the roasted almonds mixture.
* Cool in refrigerator for atleast 30 minutes before serving.

Bread Pudding ready to be cooled

Trivia Facts:

The origin of Shahi Tukra is believed to be Pakistani. It literally means Royal Piece and sure tastes like one too. A very basic bread pudding seasoned with cardamom and dry fruits of ones own choice. Foodtimeline.org explains Shahi Tukra as "An Indian dessert in the Moghul style, Shahi tukra, is made with bread fried in ghee, dipped in a syrup flavoured with saffron and rosewater, and covered with a creamy sauce in which decorative slices of almond are embedded."

* Extracts about Bread Pudding recipes through time from Foodtimeline.org

"Food historians generally attribute the origin of basic bread pudding to frugal cooks who did not want to waste stale bread. Since very early times it was common practice to use stale/hard bread in many different ways...including edible serving containers (Medieval sops, foccacia), stuffings (forcemeat), special dishes (French toast) and thickeners (puddings). In the 19th century recipes for bread pudding were often included in cookbooks under the heading "Invalid cookery."

* Extract of a sample recipe for Bread Pudding from Foodtimeline.org when bread was considered a poor man's food

[1824]