Thai sticky coconut rice with mango

Thai is one of my favorite cuisines - and this particular dessert is very easy to make. It is similar to "kheer" in Indian cuisine with a different texture due to the sticky sweet rice used in this dish. Sticky rice is served with mango,egg custard generally.

The sweet sticky rice is available at the grocery stores. It is a short and fat grain rice and when cooked, as the name suggests, the rice is "STICKY" and has amazingly good absorbing nature. So anything you put into the rice when its warm will be absorbed into the rice. I used coconut milk here that is traditionally used, but I guess we can add vanilla milk or badam milk etc.

Whats needed (serving for 4) -
1 cup sticky rice - cooked with 2 cups of water
1 cup coconut milk
5-6tbsp of sugar (adjust sugar based on you sweet levels)
pinch of salt


The procedure is very easy too - In a pan heat coconut milk, sugar and salt - until it starts to bubble. Add this mixture to the hot sweet sticky rice (cooked) and mix. The coconut milk is absorbed by the rice. Serve it with mango pieces - totally delicious and easy dessert.

Wild Rice pilaf with peas, carrots and mushrooms

I didnt want a plain wild rice pilaf for the thanksgiving dinner. So I jazzed it up with peas carrots and mushrooms and a bit of indian touch and cooked the dish in an oven instead of the rice cooker. So here goes the recipe. The amount of vegetables and seasoning can be altered based on your taste.

Ingredients:
1. Uncle bens' wild rice and long grain original recipe (picture shown). This one comes with herb seasoning etc - 3 packets. Each packet contains approx 1 cup raw rice.
2. Peas (Frozen or canned) - 1 cup
3. Shredded Carrots - 1 cup
4. Mushrooms - 2 cups
5. 1 tbsp of coriander powder (Cannot get away with the indian roots :) love the coriander/ dhaniya powder)
6. chicken stock - 1 cup
7. Bunch of cilantro for garnish


In a non-stick pan, heat 1 tbsp of butter. Add the carrots and mushrooms and saute for 2 minutes until the mushrooms are tender. Meanwhile, wash and drain the wild rice and add to the carrots and mushrooms. Saute the mixture for 3-4 minutes until you notice the rice going dry.
Add the water at this point. For every cup of rice i add 2 cups of water - no less no more and I always stick to this proportion when i cook pilaf/pulav or biryani. For this one I added 6 cups (one cup chicken stock and 5 cups water). Vegetable stock can also be added instead. Every box of the wild rice has a seasoning packet. I added just one packet of seasoning for the 3 cups of rice and added 1 tbsp of coriander powder for a bit of indian touch. The seasoning packet already has salt. I added a tsp of salt. Adjust the salt content as per your taste.
Add peas at this point and then allow the mixture to simmer until all the water is absorbed by the rice. Garnish with coriander. Cover the pan and place in a pre-heated oven at 400 F for 25-30 minutes. The rice will be done perfectly.



I realize the "valli's kitchen" mark on my pictures might be annoying - but it is just to protect my work from plagiarism.