Taste of Thai

A couple of years ago my family went to Thailand and probably the best part of the trip was, you guessed it, the food!  Although the street food does go through the body kind of fast (I think you know what I mean) it still tasted AMAZING!!  I loved the thai iced teas (I had at least one everyday), but besides that, one dessert that my family ordered multiple times was mango with sticky rice.  I love coconut and mango and rice so this dessert I guess is made for me.  Seriously, if you have never had this dessert, you have to try it!

So, I was looking online for recipes on how to make sticky rice (kind of stressed me out because there were a billion different ways to make it).  Anyway, I just got a new rice cooker (my new favorite kitchen appliance after my Magic Bullet) and so I decided to make the rice in there.  I used a recipe I found online here:

http://thaifood.about.com/od/quickeasythairecipes/r/stickyricecooker.htm

You MUST use sticky rice, other rice does not work for this recipe.  Here is the rice that I used (you can see my beautiful rice cooker in the background):

 I then followed Emeril's recipe for the coconut sauce part I found here:

 http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/sticky-rice-with-coconut-sauce-kha-niao-man-recipe/index.html

Instead of scraping the cream from a can of coconut milk, I found a can of just the coconut cream (which tastes amazing on its own) from Trader Joe's.  But, if you can only find a can of the coconut milk, put it in the fridge for a few hours to help separate the cream from the milk (DO NOT SHAKE THE CAN!).

Pour the sauce over the sticky rice and stir.  Let the rice soak up all the delicious flavor of the cream for a little while.  Then you just serve the rice with some slices of mango and (as Emeril would say) BAM!

I love to make my plates look pretty because food always tastes better when it looks good.  And let me tell you, it tastes so good.  My whole family approved.

This dessert paired with a nice couch, some comfy pajamas and an episode of New Girl makes the best end to a night.  To quote one of my favorite TV chefs, Ina Garten, "what's better than that?"