Instagram Post 5/18/2018

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)

I sing the praises of this humble dessert and I freely admit that it is a much beloved comfort food for me. No, I do not hail from 🇮🇳 West Bengal or 🇧🇩 Bangladesh, but this delicious treat does. Essentially, mishti doi is similar to a sweetened, thick yogurt – almost the texture of a custard or pudding – but is distinguished by the way in which it is made. From Wikipedia: “Mishti doi is prepared by boiling milk until it is slightly thickened, sweetening it with sugar, either gura (brown sugar) or khejur gura (date molasses), and allowing the milk to ferment overnight.” Sometimes a touch of cardamom is added for flavor and aroma. You can usually identify it by its pale orange color, but I’ve seen it nearly white as well; there’s also a variation called “bhapa doi” that’s made with sweetened condensed milk that sets up more reliably if you’re making it yourself and I understand there are fruit variants like mango as well.

This batch came from Bappy Sweets, 85-07 Whitney Ave in Elmhurst, Queens. Whenever I take folks through the neighborhood on a food tour (“ethnojunkets” I call them), Bappy is an essential stop; everyone I have introduced this delight to has absolutely loved it and it always disappears in a trice. Bappy makes and sells other mithai (Indian sweets) but I recently learned that their claim to fame and best seller is their mishti doi. I’m not surprised.
🧡
And if you have trouble remembering its name, here’s a mnemonic I came up with for this magical comfort food: “Sometimes Mishti Doi is the only thing that can make you feel better on a Misty Day.”
🧡