Matcha Rice with Mango

Someone showed me a few recipes that utilized tea in unique ways - in savoury dishes as well as sweet.  I was inspired to make this quick and easy sweet dessert. Pairing matcha and jasmine rice allows the fragrance of both components build on each other.

Simply prepare a couple cups of jasmine rice, adding about a teaspoon of matcha powder, a half-teaspoon of vanilla extract, a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of sugar.

When the rice is done, allow it to cool slightly - it should be pleasantly warm, but not hot.  Top with sliced mango and garnish with lime.  This very fragrant dish is the perfect light conclusion to any heavy meal.

Mango and Sweet Coconut Jasmine Rice

A variation on a favourite of mine, sticky rice with mango.

It a fairly simple dish, and one I used to eat often when I lived on an island.  It's sweet, savoury, creamy and satisfying.  To make this, I prepared jasmine rice and added: coconut milk, toasted coconut flakes, coconut sugar, salt and Thai basil.  I used only coconut milk, instead of water, to cook the rice and it was a bit too rich.  It would probably be better 50:50 water and rice.  Also, I used coconut sugar to give it a rich caramel flavour; again, a bit too rich.  Plain white sugar would be perfect.

While the rice is cooking, chunk the mango.

When the rice is finished cooking, allow it to cool slightly and serve with the mango chunks.  Garnish with Thai basil.  It's a delightful licoricey complement to the tropical flavours.

Mascarpone and Strawberries [+1 fail, +1 win!]

This was the end result, but it took a while to get here:

I thought I'd make a cannoli filling but serve it in puff pastry cups with fruit.  Everything was fine except I chose a skim milk ricotta... which is tastes and feels, to me, like ground rubber.

I tried my best to doctor it up.  Adding extra mascarpone and whipping it up.  Nothing worked.

It looks nice, but the texture is unfit.  The overall texture is "rubbery."

So, I whipped mascarpone, icing sugar and vanilla to make a sublime filling for the strawberries:

Then, serving it on thin slices of mango, the the textures and flavours were perfect.  It's simple, it's subtly rich, it's sublime.