Sticky rice with mango – the best-known Thai dessert

I have already published a dessert recipe from Thailand, but I just can’t avoid sharing my favourite recipe with you. And that would be Sticky Rice with mango.

This sweet can be found on every street corner in Thailand, not only as a dessert but also as a sweet snack.

Sticky Rice is a rice which, as the name suggests, is very sticky. It contains a very high percentage of starch, often it is also used as a binding or thickening agent. It is eaten in many Asian countries. In Europe, however, it is less known and is mainly found in Asian shops.

The sweet mochi from Japan are made from glutinous flour and in Korea and China you can also find salty, savoury dishes with glutinous rice. It is also often used for rice cakes. There the steamed rice is pressed into beautiful decorative shapes and eaten on special occasions. For example, in Vietnam at the Tet festival, i.e. New Year’s Day.

In Thailand, sticky rice is also used to make small – sticky, sweet – snacks. Cooked in banana leaves and spiced up with various fillings, they are offered for sale in mobile street kitchens. The filling consists of ingredients that are rather unknown to us, for example, taro, purple sweet potatoes or kidney bean puree, but also bananas.

The whole thing is also very ecological; the contents are eaten and the packaging can be composted. ?

Glutinous rice is actually steamed and not cooked

But since I have neither a steam – nor a bamboo basket, I tried to cook it anyway. I was satisfied with the result.

The rice grains become almost transparent and you can serve it as a side dish without further processing.

For Sticky Rice with Mango, the rice is soaked in sweetened coconut milk and then decorated with roasted mungo beans or black sesame.

In Thailand you often find it coloured; red, green or blue, which then, together with the yellow mango, looks very decorative.

Here is the recipe: