Sticky Rice with Mango

I had been going to Thai Taste, a restaurant in Spartanburg, SC,  for years before I tried their dessert mango & sticky rice.  After trying it I never went without getting it!  It was incredible.  I hadn't eat much fresh mango before this dessert, but it's delicious.  Mango has a firm, but soft texture, & is sweet, but not sugary sweet.  It's an extremely well balanced & flavorful fruit.  It's amazingly good when combined with sweetened sticky rice.  I craved the exotic dessert so much that it forced me to learn how to make the sticky rice with mango.

It's a simple as using 1 cup of sweet rice (found at an asian food store), 1 can of coconut milk, 3/4 cup sugar-white or brown, 1/4 tablespoon salt, & 3 tablespoons of butter, 2 fresh mangoes or 2 cups of frozen mango-thawed.  Cook the rice just as you would regular rice, 1 part rice to 2 parts water.  In a separate small pan bring the coconut milk, sugar, salt, & butter to a boil, stirring constantly until the sugar has dissolved.  When the rice is done stir in the coconut mixture.  Serve warm or chilled w/ sliced mango.  I'm used to it being served warm, so that's how I eat it.  The only difficult part of making this dessert is the rice.  I'm not great at making rice yet.  If you have the same problem, you may want to use a rice cooker.  :)

I made this for my family when they came to visit this past summer.  We ended up eating it for breakfast, lunch & dinner.   You may not feel the same way about it as we do, but I urge you to try this at least once.  It's surprisingly different, but simply good!  It may even inspire you to try more exotic foods in the future.