This week we have a Thailand delicacy. I took a cooking class while I was there this summer so I’ll probably share a few of the curries and noodle dishes I learned (Pad Thai anyone?). Since I am the kind of person that doesn’t mind having dessert first, let’s start off with this easy, tropical rice pudding.
This is street food and in all Thai restaurants there. It’s really simple with only a few ingredients. You can get “sticky” a.k.a glutinous rice from the international isle at the supermarket. Canned mangoes is ideal for this recipe since they’ll be soft and sweet from the syrup, if you’re using fresh mangoes make sure they’re ripe enough as you want a soft mango to slice in to. Dried mangoes work too though. If you get the dried stuff don’t bother with cutting it up. Just dip the mangoes in the rice like you would with carrots and hummus.
I just so happened to come across a variation of this meal on Facebook, where they rolled the rice with a chunk of mango in it and fried it. Please share your experience if you try this!
Method
- Wash and soak the sticky rice for at least 6 hours
- Steam for 20 mins. You can get pots/rice cookers which have the two compartments for this, or you could use a strainer for a steam basket. Steam until the rice gets “sticky” and translucent.
- Once rice is sticky, turn off steam
- In a medium pot on medium heat, add coconut cream and water, simmer and stir. Add the sugar and salt to taste, simmer and stir
- Add the sticky rice to the coconut cream sauce. Thoroughly stir rice through the sauce and break it up so there are no large clumps of rice in the mixture. Sauce and rice should be a thick pudding texture
- Take the sticky rice off heat
- Serve warm with sliced mangoes and extra coconut cream on top. Sprinkle sliced almonds if you wish. There was flattened rice puffs sprinkled on my street food version. It’s called pinipig in Tagalog, if you can’t find it, rice puffs would work too. Just for a bit of crunch.