Teaching and Thai!

I taught my last class on Friday. No more teaching, preparing for class, correcting their worksheets, giving them quizzes and setting up the lab. Am I sad? Hell, no! I somehow thought American kids are smarter than Indian ones (this comes from looking at some of my classmates who are super intelligent). But these kids proved me wrong. They are dumb as stone- they cannot follow simple instructions, you ask them to type the assignments, they bring a hand written one. You ask them to cite references in a given format, they will do it in their own format (no, creativity is not important in this class!). Plus, last week I had a student who complained that I was too hard and didn't give him a good grade. Yawwwnn! My boy, I was the easiest teaching assistant around, never gave you guys tough quizzes and was so lenient in corrections. Nah, I did not bother arguing with him (I am horribly lazy- even to stand up for myself ;) ) I just asked him to go talk to the prof. in-charge. I knew she would definitely side with me heheehee...

Anyways, the end of something so great should be celebrated no? And I completely agree with A- yes, I do cook for events! I know there is a vegan- Thai (or Thai-vegan, does it matter? :P) event going on (because anywhere I look, pad-thai stares back at me). Now, if I have to try anything new, I usually try a sweet dish because however bad it tastes J will eat it- because of the sugar ;P. When I first landed in this country, J made me taste this awesome Thai sticky rice with mango in a Thai restaurant (where else, so duh!) instantly hooked I say! I looked around and found a few decent recipes. What I am giving here is most definitely NOT authentic, you need to steam cook the rice in a special Thai steamer or bamboo steamer, I ain't got one, will not buy one just for this purpose! The only authentic thing I did was make my own coconut milk- now everyone say, 'good job SJ'. Without further ado, ladies and gentleman (yes, its singular because the only man who reads my blog is J!) I present to you,

Thai Sticky Rice with Mango:

1 cup sticky rice (this is not Jasmine rice. Sticky rice/glutinous rice is short and white in colour. I bought it at a Korean market)

1.5 cups coconut milk (If you are hardworking like me, make it at home ;P )

1/4 cup sugar (remember J is a sugar addict, you have to adjust it to your level)

1/4 tsp salt

1 sweet mango

1) Soak the rice for 30 mins. Cook the rice with 1.5 cups water till soft

2) Simmer the coconut milk, sugar and salt till the sugar dissolves and it becomes slightly thick (best to do this on low heat and stir occasionaly)

3) Reserve 1/4 cup of the coconut sauce. Once the rice is cooked and while its still hot, add the remaining coconut sauce to the rice, mix using a fork. The rice will absorb all the sauce. Cover and let it sit for 15 mins.

4) To serve just scoop out the rice onto a plate, drizzle some of the coconut sauce and add the mango slices on top of the rice. Tuck in!

This lovely dessert goes to Priya, who is hosting the Vegan-World Thai (finally got it right!), an event started by Vaishali.

Note: This is a very filling dessert, I could manage to eat only 5-6 spoons at a sitting. If you are a small family with not a great inclination towards sweets, I would recommend making this with just 1/2 cup rice.

I also made A&N's lemon rasam. Its a keeper! The photo does not do justice, it was already 2 pm and both of us were starving- so could not bother with background, light etc etc.