Mango Sticky Rice (Khao Niao Mamuang)
Glutinous rice steamed, folded with sweet salted coconut milk and served with ripe mango. The salt in the sauce is what makes it work.
Nutrition Info (per serving)
- 520
- Calories
- 6g
- Protein
- 18g
- Fat
- 84g
- Carbs
Ingredients
- 300 g glutinous (sticky) rice
- 400 ml coconut milk
- 100 g caster sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp rice flour
- 2 large ripe mangoes
- 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds or split mung beans
Instructions
- 1Rinse the glutinous rice in cold water three or four times until the water runs almost clear, then cover it with fresh cold water and leave it to soak for at least 4 hours, or overnight. Unsoaked sticky rice will not cook through evenly no matter how long you steam it.
- 2Drain the rice and spread it in a steamer lined with muslin or a clean tea towel. Steam over boiling water for 25 to 30 minutes, until the grains are translucent and tender with no chalky centre.
- 3While it steams, make the sauce. Warm 300 ml of the coconut milk with the sugar and 3/4 tsp of the salt over low heat, stirring until dissolved. Do not let it boil.
- 4Tip the hot cooked rice into a bowl and pour over about two-thirds of the warm coconut sauce. Fold it through gently, then cover and leave it for 20 minutes. The rice drinks the sauce in this time — it looks far too wet at first and should not be drained.
- 5For the topping sauce, whisk the rice flour into the remaining 100 ml coconut milk with the last 1/4 tsp salt, then heat gently, stirring, for 2 minutes until it thickens to a pourable cream.
- 6Peel the mangoes and slice the cheeks off either side of the stone, then cut each cheek into thick slices.
- 7Serve a mound of the sticky rice beside the mango, spoon the thickened salted sauce over the rice, and scatter with sesame seeds.
Three components, and each one is simple. What people get wrong is almost always the rice, and occasionally the salt.
Sticky rice is a different grain
Glutinous rice — despite the name it contains no gluten — is almost pure amylopectin starch, which is why it turns sticky and chewy rather than fluffy and separate. It cannot be cooked like jasmine rice.
It has to be soaked, and it has to be steamed rather than boiled. Soaking hydrates the grain all the way through; without it, the outside turns to paste while the centre stays hard. Four hours is the minimum and overnight is easier.
Steaming, rather than simmering in water, keeps the grains distinct. A metal steamer basket lined with a tea towel works perfectly if you do not have a traditional bamboo one.
The salt is not optional
A teaspoon of salt in a dessert sounds like a mistake. It is the whole design.
Coconut milk with sugar alone tastes flatly sweet and slightly cloying. Salt suppresses bitterness and sharpens the perception of sweetness, so the sauce reads as more coconutty and less sugary at the same time. It is the same reason salted caramel works.
The topping sauce is deliberately saltier than the rice sauce, so each spoonful has some contrast.
Fold while hot, then wait
Warm rice absorbs liquid; cooled rice sits in it. Pour the sauce over the moment the rice comes out of the steamer, fold gently so as not to crush the grains, and then leave it covered for twenty minutes.
It will look soupy and wrong at first. Give it the twenty minutes and the rice takes up nearly all of it, ending glossy rather than wet.
Choosing the mango
The classic pairing is with a nam dok mai or ataulfo — small, yellow-skinned, intensely sweet with no fibre. A stringy mango ruins the texture contrast.
It needs to be properly ripe: fragrant at the stem end and giving slightly to a gentle press. A firm mango is sour against a sweet rice and the dish falls apart.
Nutrition
Around 520 calories a serving, most of it carbohydrate from the rice and sugar, with fat from the coconut. Mango contributes real amounts of vitamin C and vitamin A.
Sticky rice does not refrigerate well — it goes hard and never fully softens again. Make it the day you want it, and keep any leftover rice at room temperature covered for a few hours at most.
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