Coconut Rice with Vietnamese Mint

Mint from my garden

This is a lovely way to serve rice, one of my favourites in fact!

Ingredients

400 g Thai rice

1 x 400ml can coconut cream

half tsp salt

Vietnamese or Thai mint (optional)

(In Thailand they also add sugar, but I prefer not to).

Wash the rice a few times with cold water, place it in a saucepan and add the content of the can of coconut cream plus half a measure of water from the same can (in this way you can also rinse the coconut cream out). Add salt and cover with a lid. Cook very slowly by absorption, if your lid is not very heavy line it with a tea towel to avoid loosing too much steam during cooking.

When the rice is ready turn the heat off and let it rest for 10 minutes before serving. At this point you can also add some fresh leaves of Vietnamese or Thai mint (they are similar, but I prefer the Vietnamese one!). The leaves will perfume the rice and give it more flavour.

Photos and Recipes by Alessandra Zecchini ©