Thai feature drink and dessert

After giving ourselves some time to recover and digest the Thai apps, we moved on to dinner! Forgive me, but I can't for the life of me remember what wine we had to drink. As I recall, there aren't too many Thai wines around so I'm guessing there were a bunch of reds that went with spicy food.

On the other hand, the feature drink of the evening was rather more-ish. I would totally make it another time and likely double the recipe. Six people can go through it quickly!

Lemongrass-Lime Leaf Sparkler 

(with gin added) from epicurious.com
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lemongrass-Lime-Leaf-365192

1/4 cup lemon zest (from 6 lemons)

1/4 cup lime zest (from 8 limes)

20 kaffir lime leaves

2 stalks lemongrass, roughly chopped

3/4 cup Simple Syrup, divided (1 cup sugar, 1 cup water)

6 cups soda water, divided

Directions:Combine citrus zest, lime leaves, lemongrass, and 2 cups water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 5 minutes. Strain lemongrass mixture into a jar and chill. Fill a 12 ounce glass with ice cubes. Add 2 tablespoons lemongrass mixture and 1 tablespoon simple syrup. Top with soda water (about 1/2 cup) and stir to combine. Repeat to make 11 more sodas.

Or, just double the recipe and enjoy...

Mango and Sticky Rice 

1 peeled mango - add on top of Coconut Milk Sticky Rice

Coconut Milk Sticky Rice - Kow Neuw Moon

1 cup coconut milk
2 pinches salk
1 cup Sticky Rice
2 tablespoons sugar

The Traditional Method Using a Steamer: Soak the sticky rice in enough water to cover the rice for at least an hour and even overnight. Take your steamer, put water in the bottom and cover the steam section with cheese cloth or muslin cloth. Pour the sticky rice on the cheesecloth, cover with the lid and put it on the stove on medium to high heat. The sticky rice should take about a 20 minutes of steaming to cook and will become translucent when done.

The Microwave Method: I learned this method from my friend who has mastered microwave cooking to such a high level of proficiency that she has earned the title 'the microwave queen'.

Soak the sticky rice for 10 minutes in warm water in a bowl. Soaking the rice is very important. I have tried this method without soaking the rice first and it was disastrous. The rice was undercooked and inedible. The water level should be just above the rice, which comes out to be 1 cup of rice and a little over 1 cup of water (about 10% more). I recommend using a non-plastic container because you may melt the plastic in the microwave. Cover the bowl with a dish and cook in microwave for at full power 3 minutes. Stir the ricearound to move the rice from the top to the bottom. You will notice that some of the rice is translucent or cooked and some still has white center or the uncooked portion.

Heat it up again for another 3 minutes. Check and see if it is done. When cooked, all the rice should be translucent. If it needs more cooking, I recommend heating up and checking every 3 minutes or so. How long it takes to cook really depends on your microwave.

Putting it together: Heat the coconut milk in a pot over medium heat. Stir constantly and let the coconut milk simmer. Hard boiled coconut milk will curdle. Add sugar and salt. Remove from heat. Pour 3/4 of the hot coconut milk over the hot sticky rice. Let it sit for 5 minutes. The hot sticky rice will absorb all thecoconut milk. The rice should be a little mushy. Spoon the rest of the coconut milk on top of the rice at serving time.

http://www.thaitable.com/thai/recipe/mango-on-sticky-rice