GI-Protected Sweet · Milk-Soaked Dumplings
Cumilla Rasmalai
Photo: Sm faysal / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Kolkata's K.C. Das sweet shop also claims to have invented rasmalai, yet in Bangladesh the dessert is so tied to Comilla that it carries the city's own geographical indication tag.
Soft, flattened cottage-cheese dumplings are simmered in sugar syrup, then soaked in reduced, sweetened milk flavored with cardamom and topped with pistachio or saffron. Comilla's confectioners, most famously Matri Bhandar, have sold it as the city's signature sweet since the shop opened in 1930.
Why it's made this way: The Sen brothers, Khanindra and Manindra, built Matri Bhandar's reputation on this recipe in Comilla starting in 1930, and the city's version became distinctive enough to earn official geographical indication status — granted in 2024 — as Comilla's own rasmalai.
More from Bangladesh
Part of World of Street Food — 3443 dishes from 118 countries.
Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below.
Photo credits.