Shahi Tukda

A delectable dish from the kitchen of the Mughal era, the Shahi Tukda is a piece of bread, fried till golden in ghee (clarified butter). It is then doused in a sweet, flavourful and fragrant Rabdi, sprinkled with nuts and pistachios.

The name Shahi Tukda itself speaks of its grandeur. Derived from Persian origins, "shahi" stands for royal and "tukda", a Hindi-Urdu name, refers to small bits. Cut in small triangular pieces, the sublime taste of this dessert, with a crunch in every bite, oozes out the Malai (creamy, condensed milk), something truly resplendent. A dessert with equal patronage in both India and Pakistan, this delicacy often has a place in festivities and dinner buffets.

The bread being very neutral to the palate can be consumed both as a savoury and a sweet. The abundance of production often leads to leftovers bringing out unique variations for reusing the bread. It might have been that the cooks of Mughal kitchens thought it out as a fine strategy to reintroduce the extra bread. Such was the love that every Ramzan, the Shahi Tukda found itself on the royal menu.

However, the origin of this culinary behemoth has been often contested. While the majority portray it to be a classic Mughlai dessert, some opine that it arrived through the distillation of colonial amalgamation. Often alluded to as the authentic British bread pudding, made with leftover bread soaked in milk, sugar and eggs, the texture and taste of the Shahi Tukda are starkly different.

Sections of gourmands even trace its origin to an ancient Egyptian bread pudding, ‘Um Ali’, named after the chef who cooked the dish on the sudden arrival of the King to their village. He used stale wheat bread, dunked it in a mixture of milk and eggs with topped nuts, and baked it in the oven. Another similar dish that hailed from the Middle East was the ‘Eish es Serny’, a bread pudding commonly referred to as the palace bread, made with dried bread boiled in honey and sugar syrup.