Whenever we go to Pok Pok, which is not often enough, Iris eats approximately her weight in sticky rice. Unfortunately, all-you-can-eat rice has to be a special treat because is tends to cause her negative digestive consequences (I can hear the smirks all over Asia now), but she gave a me a guilt trip last time I made a small amount of rice, so tonight I’m making sticky and I’m making a bunch of it.
Long-grain Thai sticky rice still seems to be little-known among non-Southeast Asian home cooks in the US. But it’s very easy to make and fun to eat. Head to an Asian grocery and look for a bag marked “sweet rice” or “glutinous rice,” both of which are misnomers. The rice itself looks just like jasmine rice except that it’s opaque white, rather than the slightly translucent grains of jasmine.
Cooking sticky rice is in some ways trickier and in a key way simpler than jasmine rice. It’s trickier because:
* You have to soak it, at least two hours in advance. On the bag of rice I just bought, there was a chart showing that I should soak for two hours in December, five hours in April, and some larger amount of hours in fall, because the rice dries out. This was cool. You can’t really oversoak it, though, so just start soaking in the morning.
* You have to wrap the rice in cheesecloth and steam it, rather than cooking it directly in water, which would turn it into a congealed sponge. So you have to find some cheesecloth. There’s a particular pot used for cooking sticky rice in northern Thailand and Laos. I had one of these, but I got rid of it because a regular stockpot with steamer insert works fine.
But it’s easier because:
* You can’t overcook it. You need to steam it for at least twenty minutes or so, but you could leave it in there for an hour or two and it would be fine. There’s none of this worrying about whether you put in the right amount of water or opened the pot too soon.
Eat sticky rice with your hands, using it to scoop up bits of larb, green papaya salad, or whatever else you have. Tonight I’m making cucumber salad and stir-fried chicken with mushrooms.
Man. Planning ahead enough to soak the stuff for two hours before the meal is bad enough, and now you tell me I have to adhere to a strict regimen of soaking starting in December if I want to eat it the next fall? That’s rough.
oh larb. sweet larb.
Lillie’s hands down favorite rice is the stuff they serve at Paseo. I agree that it tastes swell, although I’ll take it with scallops and cilantro over Lillie’s choice (plain) any day. Any idea what the secret is?
Paula, I remember liking the rice at Paseo but I don’t remember exactly what it’s like. I did find this Cuban rice recipe on foodtv.com. Is it anything like this?
No, it’s just plain white rice, but they do something special. Salt, yes, and then something else. Maybe they soak it in something besides water? It really does taste great all by itself, which is not something I’d say about most white rice I’ve ever tasted.