Red Bean in Sticky Rice

I have always loved Thai desserts.

Except that sometimes I find them toooo sweet for my taste.

Thais love everything with sugar - lots of sugar - in their food.

So it is always a challenge trying to find Thai desserts that aren't too cloyingly sweet.

Then it hit me: why not make my own Thai dessert ? Such as red bean in glutinous rice bathed in coconut milk? This is a simple easy-to-make dessert.

Ingredients:

300 gm glutinous rice soaked overnight in water
200 gm red beans, cooked and cooled
1 level ts salt
2 heaped tbl brown sugar
2 ts cooking oil
50 ml coconut cream (Ayam brand)

Banana leaf for wrapping the dessert
Twine to tie the banana leaf packet

Procedure:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, and cook over low-medium heat, stirring continuously. The mixture will thicken after about 5 min. Divide into 4 portions. Place each portion onto a banana leaf, fold the leaf together into a wrap and tie the ends with kitchen twine.

Boil the wrapped packets in a pot of boiling water for 40-45 min.

Do not boil the wrapped banana leaf packets for too long or the glutinous rice will be too "mushy".

The amount of sugar for this recipe suits my taste, and the dessert turned out to be just sweet enough.

Yummy !


Note: In preparing the 500 gm red beans, I had also added 2 tbl sugar and 1 ts salt to the pot. However, since the 200 gm red beans were well drained in a colander before adding to the sticky rice, most of the sugar and salt were left behind in the liquid.

The rest of the glutinous rice (300 gm) will be used to make a local Malay dessert - triangles of sticky rice coated with grated coconut and eaten with gula melaka, a dessert hat brings back childhood memories.

Bonus: Here's a nice video about a young green cook, featured on mother Nature Network. Enjoy!