Chattogram's madhubhat: the honey-less sweet rice dish and how it is made

On 2 June 2026 the lifestyle desk of Jagonews24 published a guide and recipe for madhubhat, a traditional dish of Chattogram. The day before, on 1 June, the actor Jaya Ahsan had shared a Facebook video of herself tasting madhubhat for the first time, and Desh Rupantor reported that the video had stirred fresh curiosity about the dish on social media. Madhubhat is sweet rice made by mixing cooked binni (sticky) or fragrant rice with jala rice powder and leaving it covered overnight. Despite its name, which means "honey rice", it contains no honey: its sweetness comes from jala, a powder made from sprouted paddy.

Jagonews24 framed the dish as part of a wider point: for the people of any region, their own food is not just something to eat but part of their heritage, culture and feelings, and every district has dishes that carry its history and way of life. Just as rice, fish and bhorta matter in Bengali food culture, madhubhat is especially loved in Chattogram. Handed down through generations, it is tied not only to taste but to family relationships and social custom.

According to Jagonews24, madhubhat is usually made in Chattogram for festivals, family gatherings and special occasions. In the past, families sent pitchers full of madhubhat to their married daughters' in-laws in the Bengali months of Ashwin and Kartik, as a sign of love and care for the daughter, and many families still keep up the custom. In rural Chattogram, serving madhubhat to guests or at family get-togethers was once commonplace, and its taste and aroma remain bound up with many people's childhood memories.

A feature in The Business Standard's Bangla edition on 4 May 2025 described the custom in more detail. Whoever made madhubhat used to send bowls of it to relatives and neighbours. In the first year of a daughter's marriage, sending a pitcher of madhubhat to her in-laws was an obligatory custom, like sending fruit in the fruit season, meat at Eid ul-Adha, or milk and bananas three days after a wedding, and it was believed to strengthen the bond between the two families. At one time, failing to send madhubhat to relatives was considered improper.

The feature quoted the Chattogram regional historian Abdul Haq Choudhury's book Chattagramer Samaj o Sangskritir Ruprekha (An Outline of the Society and Culture of Chattogram): "In Chattogram, sending madhubhat to a newly married daughter's in-laws in the first year is obligatory." According to Banglapedia, Abdul Haq Choudhury (1922-1994) was born in Raozan, Chattogram. His books include Chattagramer Itihas Prasanga (1976), Sylheter Itihas Prasanga (1981), Chattagramer Samaj o Sangskritir Ruprekha (1988) and Chattagram-Arakan (1989). Jagonews24 also listed this book among its sources.

In the same feature, a homemaker past 68, born and raised in Agrabad, said that following the custom of sending such food strengthens family ties, that her mother's generation said so and that she learned it from her mother, adding: "We believe that eating something together like this increases love."

The Business Standard also recorded a folk belief around the dish. Madhubhat used to be made at night, quietly, because people believed that if too many knew it was being prepared, it would not "rise", that is, would not turn out properly. So the coconut was grated and the rice mixed in silence at night, and the madhubhat appeared on the table in the morning, often with relatives invited to share it. By Chattogram's folk tradition the right time to make it is summer and the month of Bhadra, because in the heat the rice turns into madhubhat easily, and many say Bhadra's madhubhat is the sweetest.

The headline of The Business Standard feature said it plainly: a rice that tastes as sweet as honey without any honey. Not a pinch of sugar or a drop of honey goes into making madhubhat, it reported; the sweetness comes from jala rice, which makes the dish naturally sweet and fragrant. Those who like it sweeter add a little sugar when they eat it.

The feature described the taste as close to firni, the rice pudding, but without the sugar or molasses that firni contains and without firni's aroma. Instead madhubhat has its own natural, honey-like scent and a slightly sour-sweet taste. Some people who have never tried it assume that keeping the pot sealed overnight would make it smell bad; the feature said the opposite is true, and that some people are drawn to madhubhat precisely by its aroma.

The recipe Jagonews24 published also lists no honey; it adds condensed milk or sugar to a milk mixture. In other words, in the traditional household method the only sweetness comes from jala, while some modern versions add extra sweetness with milk, condensed milk or sugar.

According to The Business Standard, jala rice is made from the same paddy that farmers soak to raise seedlings. The paddy is soaked until it sprouts, then kept in a heap for 10 to 15 days, dried, and ground in a dheki or a mill into rice powder. That powder is the key ingredient of madhubhat.

Sprouting grain and then drying it is what the rest of the world calls malting. Malt is any cereal grain that has been made to germinate by soaking in water and then stopped from germinating further by drying with hot air. As the grain germinates it develops the enzymes alpha-amylase and beta-amylase, which turn the grain's starch into various sugars, including glucose and maltose. Barley is the grain most often malted, but wheat, rye, oats, maize and rice are also used.

That explains madhubhat. When jala powder is worked into hot rice and the pot is kept warm overnight, the enzymes in the jala break down the starch of the rice into sugars, so the rice turns sweet with no sweetener added. Jagonews24 called this step a special fermentation that enriches the flavour, and The Business Standard's description of a sour-sweet taste and distinctive aroma fits it. The folk wisdom that madhubhat "rises" best in hot weather matches the instruction to keep the pot somewhere warm.

The Jagonews24 recipe closely follows one published in Prothom Alo's lifestyle section on 21 November 2020 under the title Chattalar Pitha-Payesh (Chattogram's pithas and puddings), in which Nasrin Akhter gave the quantities for Chattogram-style madhu bhat. Prothom Alo's ingredients:

• 1.5 cups polao (fragrant) rice
• half a cup of binni (sticky) rice
• 1 cup coconut
• condensed milk to taste
• a quarter cup of powdered milk
• 1 cup jala rice powder
• salt to taste

The method, combining the Prothom Alo and Jagonews24 descriptions:

• Wash the rice and soak it in water for 10 minutes.
• Bring 6 cups of water with 2 teaspoons of salt to the boil in a pot. Add the drained rice and cook it soft over medium heat, stirring with a stick every so often so it does not stick to the pot.
• When the rice turns sticky, lower the heat further and leave it covered for 5 minutes, then uncover and stir.
• After 10 minutes take the pot off the heat, sprinkle in jala powder a little at a time and mix it in thoroughly with a ghutni (wooden masher).
• Press half a cup of jala powder evenly over the top, cover the pot with a thick cloth and leave it somewhere warm in the house for 12 hours.
• After 12 hours check whether the top has cracked. If it has, the madhubhat is ready; turn it out into bowls.
• Before serving, mix the coconut, powdered milk and the rest together and scatter them over the rice.

The Jagonews24 version adds one step: milk is boiled down until thick in a separate pan, then grated coconut, a little salt and condensed milk or sugar are added and cooked for a while. Once the mixture has cooled it is mixed well into the rice, which is served in bowls topped with coconut and powdered milk. Some people like madhubhat a little thinner, and chilled madhubhat is especially popular on hot days.

The traditional home method, as The Business Standard described it, is simpler. Binni or fragrant new atap rice is cooked, jala powder is scattered over the hot rice in a large pot, and the two are mixed thoroughly with a dal masher. The mouth of the pot is then tied tight with a large clean sheet of polythene or cloth and left overnight. When it is opened the next morning or at noon, the rice has turned into something like payesh or firni, and it is ready to eat. Grated coconut goes on top when it is served, and some add raisins or nuts. People used to eat it just like that; now many prefer it chilled from the fridge.

Both reports call for binni rice. Binni is glutinous rice, also called sticky, sweet or waxy rice, Oryza sativa var. glutinosa. Its grains are opaque, it has very little or no amylose and a high share of amylopectin, the two components of starch, and it becomes especially sticky when cooked. The stickiness comes from the properties of amylopectin.

Despite the name, glutinous rice, like all rice, contains no dietary gluten (no glutenin or gliadin); the word refers to its glue-like texture. It is grown mainly in Southeast Asia and the northeastern parts of South Asia, including Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines and Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh binni rice is used far beyond madhubhat. The same Prothom Alo piece included a recipe for a pitha made from binni (also called birui) rice flour filled with coconut and sugar. In the Sylhet region, where it is called biroin, sticky rice is a traditional breakfast.

The original Jagonews24 report credited madhubhat with the glucose and fructose of honey, honey's enzymes, antioxidant and antibacterial properties, a boost to immunity and some relief from colds and sore throats. Madhubhat contains no honey, and the report's own recipe has none, so those honey claims do not apply to this dish and have been left out.

Reliable figures for the ingredients come from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's FoodData Central. Per 100 g, cooked white glutinous rice has 21.1 g of carbohydrate, 2.02 g of protein and 0.19 g of fat, so it is mostly starch. Per 100 g, sweetened condensed milk has 321 kcal, 54.4 g of sugars, 8.7 g of fat and 284 mg of calcium.

The World Health Organization's fact sheet on a healthy diet defines free sugars as sugars added to foods by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, plus the sugars naturally present in honey, syrups and fruit juices. It recommends that free sugars make up less than 10% of total daily energy intake, equivalent to 50 g, or about 12 level teaspoons, for a person of healthy body weight eating about 2,000 calories a day, and says that going down to 5% or less may bring additional benefits. Madhubhat made with condensed milk or sugar is therefore best eaten in moderation. People with diabetes or other conditions should ask a doctor before eating sweet dishes like this regularly.

Nobody has a reliable account of when madhubhat began in Chattogram, The Business Standard reported. A resident of the Kapasgola area, past 78, told the paper he had watched his mother, aunt and grandmother make it, and that his wife makes it now. "My elder sister lived to 110," he said. "I saw her make it, just as I saw my mother and grandmother."

The feature noted that many researchers put the tradition at about 1,400 years old. One theory holds that when the Sufi saints known as the Bara Awliya arrived, they spread Islam and also blended some of their food habits into local culture, and that madhubhat, like the custom of mezban, may be one result. Another theory holds that in the Arakanese period people ate rice mixed with honey, giving the dish its name, and that the method changed over time while the name stayed.

Chattogram researcher Harun Rashid told the paper: "Somehow I feel this is a culture that came from the south. Rice came from the south. Rice was not common in the lands the Sufis came from. So the Arakanese explanation seems more acceptable to me." He said his own family had kept the tradition for three generations and that it is one of the elements of Chattogram's hospitality.

Both theories rest on Chattogram's long and layered history. According to Banglapedia, Arab traders did business with the port of Chattogram from the 9th century. Before Muslim rule the region was at times under the Arakanese and at times under the kings of Burma. Sultan Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah of Sonargaon conquered Chattogram in 1340; after 1538 the Arakanese took it again, and until the Mughal conquest the Portuguese and Magh pirates held sway. In 1666 the Mughal commander Buzurg Umed Khan drove out the Portuguese and established Mughal rule, and the Mughals renamed Chattogram Islamabad. Banglapedia also lists the shrine of the Baro Awliya at Sitakunda among the district's landmarks.

Banglapedia gives Chattogram district an area of 5,282.92 sq km. It is bounded by the Indian state of Tripura to the north, Cox's Bazar to the south, Bandarban, Rangamati and Khagrachhari to the east, and Noakhali and the Bay of Bengal to the west, and its mix of hills, rivers, sea, forests and valleys sets it apart from other districts. Its main rivers are the Karnaphuli, the Halda and the Sangu, and its total annual rainfall is 3,194 mm. At the 2011 census the district had 7,616,352 people, and agriculture accounted for 33.53% of household income sources. Chattogram city, at the mouth of the Karnaphuli, is the country's main seaport and is known as its commercial capital.

Chattogram's best-known food tradition is mezban. Writing in Banglapedia, Ahmad Mamtaz explains that the Persian word mezban means host and mezbani means hosting a feast. The feasts are held for death anniversaries, births, business openings, housewarmings, weddings and naming ceremonies, and serve three or four curries, such as beef, nawla kanji and chickpea dal. Mezban was first held in Dhaka in 1968 at the initiative of the Chittagong Association, and has since spread to Sylhet, Khulna and abroad. Banglapedia's district entry also lists the mezbani of the Muslim community among the district's distinctive folk festivals. Where madhubhat is food sent out to relatives and neighbours, mezban is a feast that brings everyone in; both reflect Chattogram's tradition of hospitality.

Sweetening cooked rice with sprouted grain is not unique to Chattogram. Sikhye, a traditional sweet Korean drink, is made from rice and malt. Malt water is poured over cooked rice and kept, typically at 62 degrees Celsius, until grains of rice float to the surface. The liquid is then strained and boiled until it is sweet enough; no sugar is added.

Sikhye is usually served as a dessert after a meal; it was once served to royalty after meals, and today it is sold in the drinks aisles of Korean convenience stores. The difference is that sikhye is a drink, while madhubhat is a thick, pudding-like dish, but in both the sweetness comes from the enzymes of sprouted grain.

Madhubhat was once made with festivity in home after home in Chattogram, The Business Standard wrote, but that is no longer so. Lack of time, the trouble of the long preparation and the pressure of fast-paced life have dulled many people's interest. Some village families are trying to keep the tradition alive; in the cities it has almost vanished, and many of the present generation do not know it. At the same time, some people have begun selling madhubhat online by the bowl.

Jagonews24 made the same point: amid fast food and modern dishes many traditional foods are fading, yet madhubhat still holds a place in many family kitchens because it stands for family heritage, memory and love.

Photo: AbuSayeed / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, The Business Standard (Bangla), Prothom Alo, Desh Rupantor, Banglapedia, USDA FoodData Central, World Health Organization, Wikipedia (Malt, Glutinous rice, Sikhye)