A good five or so years ago I was at a Thai restaurant and ordered sweet mango rice for dessert.  I remember that detail in particular because the rice was sweet and sticky and AWESOME and I have been trying to figure out how to reverse-engineer it ever since.

Tonight I got brave and decided to just GO for it, because I had a mango in the fridge that was about to become over-ripe, and because I was getting a little tired of plain rice and risotto.

I have to say that it came out beautifully, even though I had to do a few last-minute fixes.  It was sweet and sticky and soft and mango-ey, and I can’t wait to make it again.

The goods:

2 1/4 (or so) cups coconut milk **

1 cup sushi (or other short-grain) rice

1 mango, peeled, seeded and diced

 

** So if you’re lame like me and you want to make coconut-y rice but don’t have coconut milk on hand, what you can do is simmer equal parts water and dried coconut for a few minutes, then strain the liquid (press all the liquid out of the coconut, too) and voila! coconut milk.

 

The method:

Bring your coconut milk to a boil.  Add rice.  Bring back to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer.

Simmer about 15 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. (At this point I need to admit that I didn’t have quite enough liquid, so when all the liquid had been absorbed, the rice was still kind of hard.  So I splashed in some more water and let it simmer until it was done.)

Stir in mango and cook until heated through.

Now, do a little happy dance as you eat your sweet, coconut-y, mango-y rice.  Hooray!