Panta bhat
For farming families across Bangladesh, panta bhat was simply what you ate in the morning: last night's rice, left covered in water, now cool and slightly tangy, eaten with a fistful of salt, a raw green chilli and a bite of onion before going out to the fields. Today it is also the ritual breakfast of Pohela Boishakh, the Bengali New Year in mid-April, when Dhaka families gather near Ramna Batamul in red and white and eat panta from clay bowls, usually beside fried hilsa, which many households now skip, and a few bhortas. The grains are soft and cold, the soaking water is drunk too, and mustard oil and charred dried chilli give it bite. The real pitfall is food safety: cooked rice left warm on the counter overnight can grow harmful bacteria, so cool it quickly and soak it in the fridge. Chef's tip: use cold boiled water for soaking and eat it within 12 hours, while it tastes fresh and only faintly sour.



