Mango and Sticky Rice

Cooking time: 30mins

Serves: 4 people

Ingredients

3 small cups of Thai glutinous rice
A 400 ml tin of coconut milk
3 tablespoons of sugar
Half a teaspoon of salt
1 Tablespoon of sesame seeds
1 large ripe mango

I remember when I was a young child, about 8-9 years old. We had one mango tree in our back garden, but it didn’t have much fruit on it. And because we had such a large family (I had 7 siblings), my mother wanted to make sure it could feed everyone. The mangos on the tree were few but very large, most likely about double the size of large mangos you can find in the supermarkets here in the UK.

My sister and I used to love eating the green mango dipped in a type of sweet chilli sauce. In Thailand, it’s very common to eat some fruit before it ripens as a savoury dish. However, my brothers didn’t like eating the sour mangos. So instead, we had to be patient and wait for the fruit to ripen before we could eat it.

When the mangos were finally ready to take off the tree, my mother would ask us to run outside and pick them so she could make the mango and sticky rice dish. We would get so excited waiting as it was one of our favourite desserts. We had to be a bit more patient though, as we would have to pick the mango the day before eating. The fruit is too sour if eaten the same day.

But plucking the succulent fruit from the tree was just the easy part. The hard part was getting the coconut milk. We also had a coconut tree in our back garden. My brother would often collect any fallen coconuts and store them in a pile next to our chicken hutch. When it was time to pick one for the dish, we would have to be very careful, as there were sometimes snakes hiding in between the coconuts.

I had to chop the coconut open with a large knife similar to a machete, but with a curve at the top of the blade. Then we had a special tool to scrape the flesh out from inside the coconut. It was a metal grater screwed to a little wooden stool that you sit on while you grate the coconut. This was the part of preparing the dish that I hated. I used to sit there for about 20 minutes grating all the coconut out. I always used to ask my mum if I could do something else, but she never let me.

After I finally removed all the flesh from inside the coconut, it was ready to squeeze out all the liquid. It took another ten minutes squeezing the flesh through our hands until all the liquid came out into a bowl. Then we would just throw the leftover dried flesh for the chickens or pigs to eat.

But thankfully, here in the UK, all you need to do is go to your local supermarket and buy a tin of coconut milk and mango. But obviously you can never get the same taste as I remember from growing up in Thailand.

I hope you enjoy my recipe on how to prepare one of Thailand’s most famous deserts – Mango and Sticky Rice. You’ll most likely see this dish served in any Thai restaurant, but making it yourself is so easy.

Coconut Tree in my house in Thailand — This is a photo of the coconut tree at my mum’s house in Thailand

Baby Chicken in Thailand — This lucky little chick will get some lovely fresh coconut next time my mum makes Mango and Sticky Rice

Method

Put the sticky rice into a bowl of water and leave it on the side overnight.
The next day when you're ready to make the dish. Drain the rice and rinse with clean running water two or three times.
Then you'll need to steam the rice. If you don't have a steamer, you can simply use a colander and baking paper. Just poke lots of holes in the baking paper, then wrap up the rice and place in the colander above a pot of water. Making sure the water doesn't touch the bottom of the colander. Cover with a lid and then bring the water to boil and allow the rice to steam for about 20 minutes.
While the rice is cooking, you can cut up the mango into pieces in preparation for plating up later.
Test the rice after 20 minutes to check if it's cooked. If not, then steam for another few minutes.
When the rice is cooked, transfer it into a large bowl and leave to one side.
Next, we'll start preparing the coconut milk for the rice. It's important to remember not to shake the tin as we don't want to mix up the thick coconut cream with the watery liquid at the bottom of the tin.
Open the tin of coconut milk and spoon out the thick creamy bit from the top of the tin and put it into a saucepan. Get as much out as you can, until you see the watery liquid at the bottom. This part of the coconut milk is very watery and can be discarded down the drain.
Gently warm the coconut milk on a low heat. We don't want to boil it, so just warm it for a few minutes.
After about one minute, take three tablespoons of the milk out and put into a small bowl for later.
Then with the rest of the milk in the saucepan, add the sugar and salt then keep stirring until the sugar completely dissolves.
Next, take the saucepan off the heat and slowly pour the coconut milk over the cooked rice while stirring it in at the same time. Make sure you stir it all together well and stop if it gets too wet. You want a thick sticky consistency, not too watery.
Put the rice to one side while we make our sauce to go over the dish. This is probably the easiest sauce you'll ever make. Grab the coconut milk to put to one side earlier and simply add a large pinch of salt and mix well.
That it, now its time to plate up the dish. Put about two tablespoons of the sticky rice onto a plate. Then arrange some slices of mango on top. Sprinkle a generous amount of sesame seeds over the mango and rice. Now its time to drizzle some of the coconut sauce all over.
Now all you need to do is eat it :-)