Recipe: Coconut Rice — Side Dish Recipes from The Kitchn |Cooking With Amanda

Thursday, January 22, 2015

Recipe: Coconut Rice — Side Dish Recipes from The Kitchn

Coconut rice is an easy, delicious accompaniment to spicy Thai curries and dishes, like the Massaman curry I shared yesterday. It's a lightly sweetened version of traditional steamed jasmine rice, and it comes together in less than 20 minutes.

Leaves of kaffir lime add a beautiful, subtle lime fragrance to the dish. If you can find them fresh, buy a bunch — more than you need for this recipe — and freeze the leaves in a heavy-duty ziplock bag for future meals. You can use them, as directed, until they go crumbly. Be careful while handling these leaves, especially if they are on the stem, as they have sharp thorns. (Yes, speaking from experience here!) If you can't find kaffir lime leaves at all, you can leave them out and your rice will still be delicious.

Coconut Rice

Serves 4

2 cups jasmine rice
2 1/2 cups boiling water
1 cup coconut milk, stirred
1 to 2 teaspoons sugar, or to taste
1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste
3 kaffir lime leaves, bruised

Place the rice in a large bowl and rinse thoroughly, several times, until the water runs clear.

Place the boiling water, coconut milk, sugar, salt, and lime leaves in a heavy 2-quart pot, and warm over medium-high heat until the mixture starts to simmer. Add the rice and bring back to a low simmer. Cover the pot tightly with aluminum foil or a tight-fitting lid, then turn the heat down to low.

Cook, undisturbed, for about 15 minutes, then turn off the heat and let the rice steam for another 5 to 10 minutes. Uncover, fluff, and serve.

Recipe Note

Using boiling water speeds up the process here (and there is less evaporation), but you can also just combine plain water with the coconut milk in the pot and bring them to a simmer together, if you prefer.

(Image credits: Michelle Peters-Jones)