Chinese New Year!

Yesterday, my office/day job had a Chinese New Years party! (Year of the Dragon- wootwoot!) Somehow I only found out about this the day before the party so I was scrambling to figure out a dessert to make that night! I finally settled on making a Thai dessert one of my old roommates introduced me to (sorry- I know it's not Chinese, but so easy and yummy!) called Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango. I was originally planning to make it all pretty by molding it into balls that I put into cupcake wrappers and then lay two tiny matchsticks of mango on top, buuuut I didn't have the time/energy to do all this, so I ended up serving it potluck style in a big bowl. I think people were afraid to try it because it looks like a savory dish but it's actually a dessert. I shudda stuck with my original plan and made it pretty... presentation is everything! Sigh. Personally, I think it's as addictive as crack! If you're brave enough to step outside your comfort zone and try this, I think you'll agree with me, but don't be fooled by it's wholesome and simple ingredients, this is practically diabetes on a spoon! So good, yet so bad! Just the way I like it!


I got the recipe from Food.com, by Sass Smith:

Notes:

-First, I quadrupled the recipe and I used Jasmine Rice instead of the more traditional Sticky Rice, but the recipe below should make about 3 servings. Follow the link above for all the nutritional info.
-Also, I think I undercooked the rice slightly, I recommend adding water if the rice dries out too soon.
-If you're wondering, it kind of tastes like rice pudding times AWESOME!!


Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup basmati rice or 1/2 cup jasmine rice or 1/2 cup other sweet Asian rice
• 1 (14 ounce) can coconut milk (you can use the light kind if you want, it just makes it a little less rich)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 mango , sliced

Directions:

1. 1
   Rice: Cook rice according to package directions, but substitute coconut milk for half of the water, and add half the sugar.
2. 2
   It should be fairly dry when you finish cooking it, without any liquid visible in the pot.
3. 3
   Sauce: In a medium saucepan, boil the rest of the coconut milk with the second half of the sugar.
4. 4
   Keep this at a full boil until the rice is cooked, or until it reaches a thick, syrupy consistency.
5. 5
   Presentation: Arrange the cooked coconut rice in a bowl or plate with the mango slices in some kind of pretty formation and dribble a bit of the sauce over the whole thing

NomNomNomNom