English
বাংলা
The story
Walk through Lalbagh, Azimpur or the lanes around Chankharpul in the early morning and you will pass narrow shopfronts where two or three bakers sit beside a clay tandoor sunk into a raised platform. One rolls and folds dough, another slaps the discs onto the hot inner wall of the oven, and a third lifts them out with long iron hooks when they turn golden. Bakarkhani has been part of Old Dhaka's food since at least the eighteenth century, and to many Dhaka families it is simply what you eat with morning tea.
The dough is made of flour, water, salt and a generous amount of fat, traditionally ghee, and is rolled out, brushed and folded over several times so that it bakes into thin, crisp layers. Each piece is pressed into a small round, scored with a few slashes, and baked until dry and brittle. Bakeries usually offer a plain salted version, a sweet version, and richer ones such as ghee bakarkhani or cheese bakarkhani. In Old Dhaka it is eaten with tea, crumbled into milk, or alongside kebab, nihari and paya. The same name is used for quite different breads elsewhere in South Asia, including softer, thicker versions in other parts of Bangladesh.
A well-known legend ties the name to Agha Baqir, an eighteenth-century nobleman of Bengal, and Khani Begum, a dancer he loved, whose tragic story ends with Baqir building her a tomb in Bakerganj; the bread is said to have been named after the pair. The tale is popularised in Nazir Hossain's book Kingbodontir Dhaka, and as the title suggests, it belongs to Dhaka's folklore rather than its documented history. Bakarkhani does not have a Geographical Indication registration.
How to spot the real Old Dhaka bakarkhani
Fresh, well-made bakarkhani is light for its size, golden with darker brown spots where it touched the tandoor, and visibly layered at the edges. It should snap cleanly and shatter into flakes in the mouth, with a clean taste of baked flour and butterfat. Signs of old stock or poor fat are a soft, chewy or leathery texture, a stale or rancid smell, and a greasy film on the paper bag. Ghee bakarkhani has a richer, nutty smell than the standard kind made with vegetable fat; if the price is close to the ordinary one, ask what fat was used. Pieces that are thick and bready, or uniformly pale without tandoor marks, are likely factory-baked or made in an ordinary oven rather than a tandoor.
Buying tips
Ask the seller which bakery or area of Old Dhaka the bakarkhani comes from, what day it was baked, and whether it is the plain, sweet, ghee or cheese kind. Ask which fat is used and how it will be packed: bakarkhani is brittle, so it travels best stacked in a rigid box or tin rather than a loose bag, and it should be sealed against humidity. Bakeries bake every day, so freshly baked stock should be easy to promise.
Midmart shops each set and charge their own delivery, so bakarkhani from one Old Dhaka shop and kebab masala from another will arrive as separate parcels with separate charges. Midmart does not take payment or deliver; you agree payment and courier directly with the seller. A shop describing its bakarkhani as Old Dhaka-made is making a claim, so ask the questions above before ordering.
Keeping it fresh
Keep bakarkhani in an airtight tin or jar at room temperature, away from moisture; it stays crisp for about a week, longer in dry weather. If it softens, warm it for a few minutes in a dry pan or a low oven and let it cool to crisp again. A rancid smell means the fat has gone off, and it should be thrown away.
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Shops from where it is made
Every shop on Midmart collects payment its own way and arranges its own delivery — Midmart never handles your money or your parcel. Delivery is charged per shop: order from three shops and you pay three delivery charges.
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Sources and photo credits
- Wikipedia: Bakarkhani
- Wikipedia: Agha Baqer Khan
- The Better India: The legend behind bakarkhani bread
- Bakarkhani fresh from the tandoor in Old Dhaka — Photo: Wasiul Bahar · CC BY-SA 4.0 (source, CC BY-SA 4.0)