Last night I made some Thai black sticky rice pudding. One of my fellow interns at the SF Chronicle was testing a recipe for this on a day I wasn’t scheduled to be in, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. When I was at 99 Ranch Market yesterday, bags of black glutinous rice were giving me the eye, so I grabbed one, headed home and threw a few cups in to soak. I looked at a handful of recipes on the Web and came up with a version that resulted in too runny and sweet a product. One thing to note: don’t steam the rice in two layers because the batch on the bottom will be too wet — unless you want a runny pudding the likes of which is pictured here. Although most of the recipes I saw used more sugar and more coconut milk than I would, they offer a starting point. I would pull a good, basic recipe from one of the cooking sites and try it. You can adjust next time around. You’ll need only black glutinous rice — sometimes called “sweet” or “sticky,” — coconut milk, sugar and salt. The result will offer sweet, creamy and salty flavors along with the bite of the black rice. Note that the steamed rice will have a deep purple color and, while it will not stain as badly as, say, raw beets, I wouldn’t wear a white shirt while working with it.
