Black rice pudding with coconut cream topping

(4 Servings)

Black Rice Pudding

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Black rice must be soaked before it is cooked. The longer you soak it, the faster it will cook. At a minimum you should soak it at least 12 hours (overnight) but I’ve found that letting it soak for up to 36 hours will shorten the cooking time to an hour or so.
• When you’re ready, bring 2 cups / 440 ml of water to a boil, then add the rice and reduce heat to a simmer.
• Cook the rice covered for 30 minutes or so, then remove the lid. Continue cooking until most of the water is absorbed. This can take several hours if you haven’t soaked the rice very long.
• Add the palm sugar and stir the mixture constantly until it is dissolved. This can take a few minutes.
• Remove from heat and allow to cool. The pudding is best served warm, but it can be refrigerated and re-heated in a microwave.

Coconut Cream

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Heat the coconut cream over low heat, then stir in the rice flour and salt. Keep stirring until the mixture begins to thicken, then stir in the sugar. Remove from heat as soon as the sugar is dissolved.

To serve, spoon some of the rice pudding into a dessert dish, then cover with a little coconut cream.

Mangoes and Sticky Rice

(4 Servings)

Sweet Sticky Rice

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Before cooking sticky rice, it must first be washed. Rinse the rice in a strainer until the water is clear. Traditional wisdom in Thailand is that it takes three washings to properly clean the dust off the rice.
• Here’s the tricky part: the rice must be soaked overnight (in other words, about eight hours or more) before cooking.
• Next, sticky rice must be steamed, not boiled, so you cannot use a traditional rice cooker unless it has a strainer to keep the water separated from the rice. You also get the best results if the rice is a uniform depth when cooking. I’ve gotten my best results using a round cake pan with a mesh bottom placed in a vegetable steamer. The pan allows the rice to be smoothed to an even depth, while the mesh bottom allows the steam through without letting the rice fall out. Steam the rice about 20 minutes.
• While the rice is cooking, stir together the sugar and coconut cream. It helps dissolve the sugar if you warm the coconut cream for 20 to 30 seconds in the microwave before stirring in the sugar.
• As soon as the rice is cooked, transfer it to a large bowl and pour the sweet coconut cream over it. Stir it to mix and let it set. If you seem to have too much liquid, strain the mixture to remove the excess.
• I think this dish is best when the rice is still just a little bit warm.

Coconut Cream

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Heat the coconut cream over low heat, then stir in the rice flour and salt. Keep stirring until the mixture begins to thicken, then stir in the sugar. Remove from heat as soon as the sugar is dissolved.

Now, to put it all together, you’ll need the above items plus two ripe mangoes and (optionally) some puffed yellow mung beans (these have a taste and texture like puffed rice, which you could probably use in a pinch).

• Peel the mangoes then cut the meat lengthwise off either side of the large central pit. Further cut the mango into bit-sized pieces and arrange on a plate.
• Spoon some of the sweet sticky rice onto the plate next to the mango.
• Drizzle some of the coconut cream over the rice and the mangoes, then sprinkle some of the mung beans over the rice.

Mock Pomegranate Seeds

(4 – 6 Servings)

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Mix a few drops of food coloring in enough water to cover the chestnuts. Soak the water chestnuts for about 10 minutes, then drain. Don’t worry if the color is quite dark, it will lighten considerably when cooked. Coat the wet chestnuts with the tapioca flour. The simplest way is to put the flour and wet chestnut chunks in a plastic bag, seal it and shake!
• Bring a medium pot of water to a rapid boil. Drop the floured chestnuts into the water. When the chestnuts float to the top, they’re done and can be skimmed off the boiling water. Immediately drop the chestnuts into some iced water. The chestnuts will be a little cloudy when first removed from the hot water, but will take on their jewel-like quality when dropped into the cold water.
• Combine the sugar with ¾ cup of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat and continue boiling until it becomes syrupy. Add the coconut milk, stir to combine and remove from heat.
• To serve, spoon some of the mock pomegranate seeds into a small serving bowl, top with some of the sweet coconut milk and crushed ice.

I dressed this dish up a bit for the photograph with the addition of a few slivers of jackfruit, which is quite a common addition to this dish.

Jade Sticky Rice – The Christmas Version

(4 – 6 Servings)

Sticky Rice Layer

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Before cooking sticky rice, it must first be washed. Rinse the rice in a strainer until the water is clear. Traditional wisdom in Thailand is that it takes three washings to properly clean the dust off the rice.
• Here’s the tricky part: the rice must be soaked overnight (in other words, about eight hours or more) before cooking.
• Next, sticky rice must be steamed, not boiled, so you cannot use a traditional rice cooker unless it has a strainer to keep the water separated from the rice. You also get the best results if the rice is a uniform depth when cooking. I’ve gotten my best results using a round cake pan with a mesh bottom placed in a vegetable steamer. The pan allows the rice to be smoothed to an even depth, while the mesh bottom allows the steam through without letting the rice fall out. Steam the rice about 20 minutes.
• While the rice is cooking, stir together the sugar, coconut cream, pandan flavoring and food coloring. Use just enough coloring to give the mixture a light creamy green color. It helps dissolve the sugar if you warm the coconut cream for 20 to 30 seconds in the microwave before stirring in the sugar.
• As soon as the rice is cooked, transfer it to a large bowl and pour the sweet coconut cream over it. Stir it to mix and let it set. If you seem to have too much liquid, strain the mixture to remove the excess.
• Once the mixture has cooled slightly, you can transfer it to a pan or individual serving dishes. Keep it in the refrigerator to make it firm.

Coconut Cream Topping

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• To create the coconut cream second layer, mix together the coconut milk, rice flour and salt in a pan. Heat to boiling over medium flame, stirring until it thickens. Remove from heat and spoon onto the top of the first layer.
• Store in the refrigerator.

Serving note: If you refrigerate this dessert – which you will want to do if you’ve made it well ahead of time – be sure to take it out well enough ahead of time to be served at room temperature. The dish doesn’t taste very good cold, and needs to be room temperature or warmer.

Sweet sticky rice "cake" with coconut cream "frosting"

(4 – 6 Servings)

Sticky Rice Layer

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• Before cooking sticky rice, it must first be washed. Rinse the rice in a strainer until the water is clear. Traditional wisdom in Thailand is that it takes three washings to properly clean the dust off the rice.
• Here’s the tricky part: the rice must be soaked overnight (in other words, about eight hours or more) before cooking.
• Next, sticky rice must be steamed, not boiled, so you cannot use a traditional rice cooker unless it has a strainer to keep the water separated from the rice. You also get the best results if the rice is a uniform depth when cooking. I’ve gotten my best results using a round cake pan with a mesh bottom placed in a vegetable steamer. The pan allows the rice to be smoothed to an even depth, while the mesh bottom allows the steam through without letting the rice fall out. Steam the rice about 20 minutes.
• While the rice is cooking, stir together the sugar and coconut cream. It helps dissolve the sugar if you warm the coconut cream for 20 to 30 seconds in the microwave before stirring in the sugar.
• As soon as the rice is cooked, transfer it to a large bowl and pour the sweet coconut cream over it. Stir it to mix and let it set. If you seem to have too much liquid, strain the mixture to remove the excess.
• Once the mixture has cooled slightly, you can transfer it to a square pan – an eight-inch one works well. Spread the rice out to form a flat layer about a half-inch thick. Keep it in the refrigerator to make it firm.

Coconut Cream Topping

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• To create the coconut cream second layer, mix together the coconut milk, rice flour and salt in a pan. Heat to boiling over medium flame, stirring until it thickens. Remove from heat and spoon onto the top of the first layer.
• Store in the refrigerator.

Serving note: If you refrigerate this dessert – which you will want to do if you’ve made it well ahead of time – be sure to take it out well enough ahead of time to be served at room temperature. The dish doesn’t taste very good cold, and needs to be room temperature or warmer. You can cut the dessert into oblong pieces, or use an egg ring as I did for the photo to make a larger portion – leaving lots of leftover bits to spoil your dinner with.

Jasmine Pudding, served in a Martini glass; definitely not dry!

If I had to pick just one Thai sweet as my favorite, it would have to be this apparently simple recipe for a two layered sweet. The bottom layer consists of a nearly clear gelatin-like substance that typically has bits of something crunchy in it. The traditional crunchy bit is provided by water chestnuts, but you can use lotus seeds, sweet corn, steamed peanuts or even chunks of mature coconut. You can also try bits of fresh fruit, such as lichee, longan or mango.

The top layer is another sort of pudding made with just coconut milk and rice flour. It has an opaque snow white appearance, which might make it a quite appropriate sweet for the winter holidays. Since the top layer hides whatever is in the first layer, it makes these sweets something of an adventure. Most stalls that produce these sweets with several different bits of fruits or nuts in the first layer will place a bit of the fruit on top of the coconut layer.

You probably don’t have access to a pandan bush to source the raw materials for the boxes, and you may not wish to spend the time making the number of boxes that this recipe will fill. In that case, try to find some small foil cups for muffins or petite fours. Another possibility is to use something like a Martini glass, which makes a more elegant serving container.

Some additional ingredient notes: Corn flour is a perfectly acceptable substitute for tapioca flour. The two serve exactly the same purpose and have almost the same taste (which is pretty much none). There is no substitute for the rice flour. See the recipe for jasmine water to find out how to make it, as well as what to do if your jasmine bush isn’t in bloom. If you can’t find pandan juice, or extract, I suggest you just leave it out. I prefer the color of the dish without it. I’ve seen any number of descriptions of how to get coconut cream out of coconut milk, but frankly, the canned stuff works the best and tastes great.

(6 Servings)

Jasmine Pudding

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• To create the first layer, bring the sugar and plain water to a boil and cook until the sugar is dissolved, then reduce heat.
• Stir together the 40 grams of rice flour and tapioca flour. Mix in the jasmine water and pandan juice bit by bit. Pour slowly into the sugar mixture. Add in the water chestnuts and stir to mix through. Quickly pour the mixture into the leaf boxes, or whatever you are using to serve the dessert. You have to work fast, since this mixture will gel quite quickly.

Coconut Cream Topping

Ingredients

Preparation Method

• To create the coconut cream second layer, mix together the coconut milk, rice flour and salt in a pan. Heat to boiling over medium flame, stirring until it thickens. Remove from heat and spoon onto the top of the first layer, filling the leaf boxes, or whatever.

Serving note: If you refrigerate this dessert – which you will want to do if you’ve made it well ahead of time – be sure to take it out well enough ahead of time to be served at room temperature. The dish doesn’t taste very good cold, and needs to be room temperature or warmer to allow the jasmine fragrance to come out.