Speciality Rice

Not every rice is for the daily plate. This category of our rice and grains department holds the grains cooked for one dish or one occasion. Glutinous rice, also called sticky or sweet rice, has very little amylose, so it steams into a chewy, cohesive mass for Thai mango sticky rice, Chinese lo mai gai and Filipino suman.

Kalijeera is a tiny aromatic rice from Bangladesh and West Bengal, sometimes called baby basmati, loved for polao, payesh and khichuri. Black rice gets its colour from pigment in the bran; Tamil cooks know it as kavuni arisi and simmer it with jaggery and coconut into the Chettinad sweet of the same name, while in Manipur it is chak-hao.

These grains are bought in small quantities, so a modest bag lasts. Glutinous rice is sold for sweets and dumplings, not as a stand-in for everyday rice, and kalijeera is best kept for dishes where its scent will be noticed.

Glutinous rice must be soaked for at least four hours, ideally overnight, then steamed in a cloth lined basket, never boiled. Black rice also wants an overnight soak and around forty minutes of simmering. For everyday grains, head to basmati and long grain rice or South Indian rice.