Mahasthan kotkoti

The story

Mahasthangarh, a few kilometres north of Bogura town, is the oldest city site yet found in Bangladesh, and it also holds the shrine of Shah Sultan Balkhi Mahisawar. Pilgrims and day-trippers have come for generations, and the lane leading to the mazar has long been lined with stalls selling something to take home. Over time the thing they sell became kotkoti, a name that imitates the crunching noise the sweet makes between your teeth. Today well over a hundred shops cluster around the shrine, and the sweet is so tied to the place that many people simply call it "Mahasthaner kotkoti".

Nobody agrees on exactly who invented it. One local account credits three men from Polashbari village who sold flour-and-jaggery bars at the shrine and nearby markets more than a century ago. Another, told by the family behind one of the oldest shops, says a seller at the mazar gate first fried a dough of flour and jaggery in mustard oil, and that his son later switched to rice flour, changed the frying fat and added spices. Both stories agree on the broad outline: kotkoti began as a cheap wheat-flour snack fried in oil and slowly became richer.

Modern kotkoti is made by soaking aromatic rice, grinding it to flour and kneading it with a little oil. The dough is rolled out, cut into squares of roughly an inch and a half, fried until reddish gold, and then tossed in thick sugar or date-palm jaggery syrup that sets into a crust. Shops now sell several grades, from plain oil-fried kotkoti to versions fried in dalda or ghee, and a "shahi" kind with nuts. Visitors are traditionally offered a free piece to taste before buying, and expatriates now carry or ship it abroad.

How to spot the real Mahasthan kotkoti

Good kotkoti is a pile of small, roughly square pieces, reddish brown to deep orange, with a dry, sugary crust that crackles when you bite and a firm but not rock-hard centre. You may see specks of black cumin or bay leaf, and the ghee kinds smell noticeably buttery. It should taste of toasted rice, caramelised sugar or jaggery and clean fat. Stale or badly made kotkoti tastes of old oil, is soft and chewy because it has absorbed moisture, or is so hard it hurts. The name is not protected, and similar sweets are made in other districts, so ask whether the batch was actually made at Mahasthan, which fat it was fried in, and whether it is the sugar or the jaggery kind.

Buying tips

Kotkoti is a dry sweet, so it travels far better than syrupy or milk sweets and is one of the easier regional foods to order from a distance. Even so, ask the seller when the batch was fried, how it will be packed (an airtight bag inside a box keeps the crunch and stops the pieces breaking), and which courier they use. Ask which grade you are getting, because the price depends heavily on the frying medium: oil-fried kotkoti costs less than ghee or nut versions, and jaggery syrup usually costs more than sugar.

Each Midmart shop sets its own delivery charge, so if you also buy Bogura doi or something else from a different shop, expect a separate parcel and a separate fee. Midmart itself never takes your money and never ships anything: the price, payment method and delivery are agreed between you and the seller. No Midmart listing is certified as Mahasthan-made, so check the answers you get before you pay.

Keeping it fresh

Keep kotkoti in an airtight jar or a tightly closed bag at room temperature, away from steam and sunlight. It stays crisp for a couple of weeks if kept dry; once humidity gets in, it softens and the sugar turns sticky. Do not refrigerate it. If it starts to smell of rancid oil, throw it away.

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SUMU ART New Bogura

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