Coconut Mango Rice

Sticky Rice

1. Put rice in a large glass bowl and cover with enough room temperature water to come up about 1 inch over the top of the rice. Soak rice for 1-5 hours. Drain off the water, and rinse the soaked rice with running water to remove excess starch.
2. Fill a medium-sized pot about ⅔ full with water. The pot should be smaller than your splatter guard or fine mesh strainer that has been inverted (see post notes above) that you plan to use to cook the rice. Heat the water to boiling.
3. Place a splatter guard or mesh strainer over the boiling water and adjust the heat down a bit to maintain a gentle boil. Carefully dump the drained and rinsed rice right onto the splatter guard or inverted strainer, right in the center. Keep the mound of rice no higher than 2 to 3 inches high. This will help with even cooking.
4. Cover the rice mound with a bowl or pot that domes a bit higher than the height of the rice mound. The cover does not have to match the size of the pot opening; as long as it doesn’t touch the rice and can sit on the splatter guard or mesh strainer, it will work.
5. The amount of time required to steam the sticky rice will depend on the amount of rice you are steaming, but one cup of raw rice will take about 25 to 30 minutes using this approach. Halfway through the steaming process, remove the domed cover and quickly flip the rice or give it a fluff to ensure even cooking and prevent the rice on the bottom of the pile from getting soggy.

Sweet Coconut Sauce & Topping

1. While the rice is steaming, open the can of coconut milk and spoon out the thick cream on top into a small bowl and set aside. If you do not shake your can and let it chill in the refrigerator before using, this step will be very easy as the milk and cream will naturally separate. Pour the thinner, lighter coconut milk that remains into a small pan.
2. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar and ½ teaspoon of salt to the coconut milk in the small pan, and warm over medium heat, stirring gently and continuously until the sugar is completely dissolved, about 5 minutes. Be careful not to let the sauce come to a boil.
3. Once the rice is cooked through with no hard, raw bits in the middle of the grains, remove the splatter guard or strainer from over the water and scrape the rice off the screen into a mixing bowl. It may be lumpy, which is fine. Slowly pour the warm coconut milk mixture over the cooked rice, stirring frequently to coat the rice in the coconut milk mixture, but watching so that you are not oversaturating the rice to the point that there are puddles of coconut milk. Continue stirring, and stop adding the sweetened coconut milk once it looks like the rice is saturated. You may not use all of the coconut milk mixture. Set the rice aside for 20 minutes (or even up to 2 hours) to finish absorbing the coconut milk.
4. While the rice is soaking, make the coconut cream topping. In the same saucepan that you used for the coconut milk, give it a quick rinse and then stir together the reserved coconut cream and the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar, and ¼ teaspoon salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together a few teaspoons of water and the cornstarch to create a thin slurry.
5. Whisk this cornstarch slurry into the coconut cream mixture and cook over low heat for about 3 minutes, or just until the mixture begins to thicken. Set aside.
6. Peel the mango and slice it into thin slices. Arrange the slices in a decorative manner on individual serving plates and serve with a portion of coconut sticky rice with the coconut cream sauce drizzled over the top and toasted sesame seeds sprinkled on top for garnish. You can also garnish the plate with banana leaves or tropical, if you have access to them, just to make it look even more authentic.