Sticky Rice with Mangoes and Sweetened Coconut Milk - Khao Neeo Mamuang

When the weather is sunny and hovering around 30 degrees Celsius (or 84 degrees Fahrenheit), it makes me think of desserts like shaved ice and sticky rice with mangoes. Although my relatives are from Cambodia, I can’t recall eating mangoes with sticky rice and sweetened coconut milk.  In Thailand, they call it khao neeo mamuang.

Not long after watching some youtube videos of street food in Thailand and Singapore, I had sudden cravings of tasting sticky rice with mangoes. We luckily had some ripe mangoes from Toronto. Perfect.

Sticky rice was made with a bit of coconut milk powder and water. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough water and some of the rice became crunchy.

A couple of mangoes from the case were placed in a plastic bag to ripen quicker for a few days. (You can also use this technique to ripen bananas quicker too.) This was the result. The soft mangoes were deep orange and, once peeled, filled the kitchen with a sweet perfume of mangoes.

The coconut-scented sticky rice was topped with the sliced mangoes. Coconut milk was drizzled on top but it just didn’t taste right. There was something missing. Simple syrup was needed to sweeten the sticky rice and make it taste better.

This dessert dish would’ve been much better if the sticky rice was made properly.  Some of the sticky rice earned a big womp womp. Not only did it stick to our teeth, but they also weren’t pleasant to chew. I’m not sure that it’s worth the extra effort to eat ripe mangoes. I’d be perfectly happy to eat cold ripened mangoes alone -- especially in the heat.