I am not much of a rice eater, having grown up in what’s called the wheat bowl of India. I like the occasional helping of rice, of course, especially when I have it with soft potato fries and dal. But now I find that when I do have rice, I like it short and stubby, and preferably not white. There was a time when the aroma of Basmati was treated as a sign of a feast. But these days I look forward to the somewhat nutty flavour of black rice.

I was introduced to this rice during my trips to the Northeast long years ago. The relationship was strengthened during my sojourns in regional restaurants in Delhi, where I ate black rice with a host of Northeastern dishes, including my favourite Sikkim pork. But now chefs have been telling me how the rice can be cooked in various ways, replacing other kinds of rice in different cuisines.

Some of the dishes can surprise you. One would always expect biryani to be cooked with long-grained Basmati, with its heady flavours, but Mayank Kulshreshtha, the executive chef of ITC Sonar, Calcutta, has been cooking it with black rice instead.

“You get the more earthy and nutty taste of the rice, which is a nice change,” he says about his black rice seafood biryani, which he cooks with assorted seafood in the rice, steamed in a sealed vessel with shellfish stock and saffron.

With black rice on the forefront of the movement for unpolished, coloured grains across the world, more and more chefs are cooking dishes with this particular rice, not just for a change in taste and texture, but for health reasons, too. “People want healthy grains,” chef Mayank stresses. “And this is a healthy and tasty option.”

So you will find black rice replacing Arborio or carnaroli in the Italian risottos. You will find it in arancini — which are stuffed rice balls cooked in a tomato-based sauce. Chef Kulshreshtha’s arancini are caramelised walnut stuffed black rice dumplings served with an intense Gorgonzola sauce.

Black rice can replace the white rice in the Cajun jambalaya, too, as chef Pradip Rozario of K.K.’s Fusion in Calcutta and chef Nishant Choubey of Dusit Devarana in Delhi have discovered. “The essence of black rice goes well with the flavours of prawn and bacon,” says chef Rozario.

Another Cajun-Creole dish that chef Choubey prepares with black rice is the étouffée, a rice and shellfish dish.

What about Asian dishes? Sure, says chef Kulshreshtha, who stir fries black rice with shredded chicken and Teriyaki sauce, or tosses it with assorted vegetables and chicken in a coriander sauce.

I know that black rice works very well in place of gobindbhog rice or other short grained rice varieties in kheers. The black rice is a special Manipur dessert. The rice stays a bit crunchy and lends a light purple colour to the thickened milk. Chef Kulshreshtha’s sweet offering is the black rice condé — prepared with milk, cream and sugar, and, of course, black rice.

The rice that he uses comes from Manipur and Mizoram, so that’s the region which revels in black rice preparations. But chef Choubey tells me that the rice can be used innovatively in the north, too. For instance, he makes a mean black rice papad.

Black rice, as we know, is healthy – it’s full of iron, vitamin E and antioxidants such as anthocyanins. I read somewhere that in China, it was known as the forbidden rice, for it was meant only for royalty. Now it’s not just not forbidden, it’s actively encouraged and openly welcomed. Black, after all, is the colour of choice.

Photographs by Rashbehari Das; 
Location courtesy: ITC Sonar in Calcutta