Shahi Tukda

One of my favourites, the recipe has its origins somewhere near Old Hyderabad State (present day Maharshtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh), which included Marathi speaking populations. Shahi Tukda (शाही टुकडा) literally translates to Royal Bite and stands up to the name. In our kitchen, it's seldom prepared but relished every single time!

Serves 3

Ingredients:
For the rabdi:

Milk	500 ml
Sugar	2 tsp (~ 8 gms)

For the sugar syrup:

Sugar	40 g
Water	4 tsp

For the fried bread:

Bread slices	6
Ghee/Oil	For frying

For garnishing:

Pistachio	3, Sliced
Almonds	3, Sliced
Saffron strands	A Few
Silver Leaf/Varkh	To Garnish

Method:

1.To make the rabdi, pour the milk in a non stick pan and bring it to a boil.Now let the milk thicken on a low flame, stirring periodically. We need to bring it down to almost 1/3 the original volume.Now add sugar, give it a boil and turn off the heat .
2.To make the sugar syrup, add the sugar and water to a pan and make a 1-thread-consistency sugar syrup.
3.To make the fried bread, heat oil in a pan.Simultaneously,cut off the bread crusts.You can cut the bread into fancy shapes (like I did) or plain squares. Once you've cut the bread, fry it until golden brown.
4.Once all your components have cooled, dip the fried bread pieces in the sugar syrup and place them on a wire rack to drain the excess syrup.
5.To assemble the dish, place your sweetened bread onto the serving dish. Next, pour the rabdi over them. Don't overdo this.You just need enough to cover the bread piece.Garnish it with varkh, pistachios, almonds and saffron. Now tuck into this little piece of goodness.* Individual components can be made ahead of time but the final assembly(including dipping the bread in the syrup) should be done just before serving lest the bread turn soggy.

Although this recipe will give approximately 1051 calories, it's worth the effort you'll have to put in to burn them!