My Creative Flavors: Shahi Tukda with Rose Pudding

So, how about the idea of surprising your special ones by treating them to a Royal Indian Dessert !

The very first thought that came to my mind was this simple yet royal that is made in almost every kitchen back home for all informal and formal occasions. The traditional sweet has its genesis from Hyderabad where fried bread slices are soaked in warm milk with cardamom, saffron and sugar for enriched flavor and garnished with nuts. It is served with a plain pudding called 'Rabri' made by milk thickened over low heat enriched with Almond meal. In this recipe I made a rabri/pudding enriched with goodness of carrots and sweet appetizing flavor of rose. We are going to make a two variations of this dessert here, you can pick the one you like, one thing is for sure that they both will enlighten your senses.

You can enjoy Shahi Tukda in two ways, The Crunchy variant - by drizzling our fried bread in the flavored syrup & layer in your carrot pudding like a sandwich (personally my favorite) or, The Soft and Yummy Variant - by immersing the fried bread in the carrot pudding itself.

I got to know Madalina from Duhlicious almost a month back and immediately fell in love with her beautiful space. Right from the exhaustive index of recipes, to her learnings at the culinary school and most loved feature is her way of sharing her experiences beyond baking. It was natural for me to feel honored when I got an email from her saying how much she liked my blog and it just got better when she requested me to do a guest post.

This would be a fantastic way to perk up your culinary skills and make the evening special.

I thought of giving Madalina a home made treat of “Shahi Tudka served with aromatic Rose pudding".

Ingredients:
(2 servings, multiply as needed)

- Brown Bread: 4 slices
- Saffron : few strands
- Sugar: 1/2 cup
- Water: 1 cup
- Cardamom: 1/4 tsp
- Rose Water: 2 tsp
- Pistachio, Almonds: few for garnishing
- Sandwich cutters of different shapes

Method:

- I chose brown bread and cut it in two shapes A flower and A Star, using sandwich cutter. If you want to keep it simple you can also cut the bread in a diagonal shape through the middle, trimming away the edges. Using Brown bread will ensure a rich brown color to the toast.

- To prepare the bread, the traditional method is to heat Ghee or Cooking oil in a frying pan and toast the slices of bread till they are crisp and light brown. Alternate way to prepare the bread is to toast it in the oven for 5 to 7 minutes.

To prepare aromatic sugar syrup boil water and sugar together for 15 minutes on low heat. Add cardamom powder and few saffron strands to enhance the flavor of the syrup. Add Rose water to make it even more fragrant.

Rose PuddingIngredients:

- Whole Cream Milk : 2 cup
- Rose Water: 2-3 tsp
- Grated Carrots : 1/4 cup
- Cardamom powder: 1 tsp
- Fresh heavy cream or condensed milk : ½ cup
- Sugar: half cup or to taste (Don’t add sugar if using condensed milk)
- Pistachio, Almonds : 10-12 finely sliced
- Saffron : Few strands

Method for Pudding:

- In a heavy bottomed pan, take 2 cups of whole cream milk & bring it to boil. Wash and grate carrots, add these to the boiling milk. (you can make the Pudding without Carrots if you like )

- Let the mix simmer on high heat for 15-20 minutes until carrots are done. Keep Stirring & scrapping the sides. Once the mix reduces, let it cool and to smoothen give it a churn in a blender. Put it on low heat again and add cardamom powder, cream, sugar, saffron strands dissolved in warm milk. Stir the pudding for another 10 minutes and take off the heat. Now add rose water and garnish with saffron and chopped nuts.

. . .

Assembling our dessert:

We can assemble & enjoy this dessert in two ways:

The Crunchy Sandwich Variation - Soak our fried bread in the flavored sugar syrup (ensure the the bread is completely soaked & oozing sugar syrup) & generously layer in the Rose pudding like you’d do for a sandwich. Put another piece of bread soaked in sugar syrup on the top. Garnish it with chopped pistachios and almonds.

[Crunchy Sandwich Shahi Tukda]

The Soft and Yummy Variation – Immerse 2 pieces of fried bread in the Rose Pudding (for a min of 25-30 mins to let the bread soak the pudding completely). Now we will take out these pieces and layer these, one on top of another. Generously pour the pudding on the top and garnish with chopped pistachios and almonds.