Category Archives: Food

Durian sticky rice recipe

Here’s a dessert I like to make, but I don’t make often as most people do not tolerate durian. However, I recently made it for a family potluck – my extended family all (almost all) love durian! 🙂

Durian Sticky Rice

Ingredients:

Around 5-6 durian pods
3 cups sticky/glutinous rice
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups coconut milk
Toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Note: You can decrease the rice to 2 or 2.5 cups if you prefer a greater durian topping to sticky rice ratio

Instructions:

Soak the rice for 6 hours or more. Afterwards, rinse several times until clear. (If you forgot to soak the rice, check out these instructions for fast soaking.
Steam the rice for 25-30 minutes.
While steaming the rice, you can make the coconut sauce. Heat 2 cups of coconut milk, and add salt and sugar. Mix to dissolve.
After the rice is done, transfer to bowl and pour half of the coconut mixture into the rice. Mix well.
Return the other half of the coconut mixture to the stovetop and heat. Add the durian pods (remove the seeds) and cook on low heat for about 5-10 minutes.
Put rice in serving plate/container, and pour the coconut durian mixture on top.
Sprinkle sesame seeds (optional)

Enjoy! 🙂

Coconut jello recipe

One dessert I often like to make is coconut jello. I’ve always been a big fan of jello – with its interesting properties and endless creative possibilities. Coconut jello is also an easy dessert to make. So, here’s my recipe.

Note: Tweak the ratio of water to coconut milk to your preferences. If you like it more rich, use a 1:1 water to coconut milk ratio. A 2:1 ratio works well too (4 cups water, 2 cups coconut milk.) My husband prefers 100% coconut milk. 🙂 Also, add more sugar if you like things sweeter.

Ingredients:

3 cups water
3 cups coconut milk – Use a good quality coconut milk. I use the Aroy-D coconut milk that comes in cartons. It’s creamy and I don’t have to worry about BPA in cans: https://amzn.to/32LnIWt I have found it at Asian grocery stores, but any coconut milk will work.
1.25 cups sugar
6 Tablespoons gelatin (Basically one tablespoon per cup of liquid.) I use Vital Proteins Beef Gelatin: https://amzn.to/2ZgV78g. If you’re using Knox, use 6 packets. https://amzn.to/2JSIs7k
(Optional) A pinch of salt
(Optional) A dash of vanilla extract
(Optional) Strawberries

Instructions:

Pour 1.5 cups of cold water in a pot.
Slowly sprinkle the gelatin on top of the cold water one tablespoon at a time. Let it sit for a few minutes to let it “bloom.” It will become apple sauce-like.
Turn on the heat and stir.
Add sugar and stir until dissolved.
Add coconut milk and stir. You don’t need to boil it – just make sure it is combined well.
(Optional) Add in the salt and/or vanilla extract and mix.
Stir in the remaining cold water (1.5 cups.) This helps cool it down
Pour into your container/mold/pan. If you’d like to make sure it is really smooth and to remove some bubbles, pour through a mesh strainer.
(Optional) Add thin-sliced strawberries. They will float. Or to make it easier, skip this step and serve the strawberries alongside the coconut gelatin.
If you would like your jello to have two layers (as you can kind of see in the photo), let it sit on the counter for at least 30 minutes and it will separate.
When the separation gets close to half-half, put it in the fridge. Chill for a few hours or until set. Cut into whatever shapes you like.

To make a matcha coconut jello, use 1 tsp of matcha powder for every cup of liquid. In this recipe, you would use 6 tsp.

Recipes

I’ve been in the kitchen a bit recently.
In case I might lose them, and in case you might be interested, here are links to some of the recipes.

Overnight oats – Did you know you can soak oats overnight and eat them right out of the fridge the next morning? No heat required! (Supposedly they are more nutritious and more easily digestible too.) I haven’t had a microwave the last month and have been eating my oatmeal prepared this way. It’s fast, easy, and delicious. You can customize it anyway you want – I use a cup of oats (use regular, not instant), a cup of homemade soy milk, a few spoons of vanilla yogurt (I LOVE vanilla and the yogurt sweetens my oatmeal just enough), and some trail mix (with cranberries and various nuts) from Trader Joe’s. Sometimes I add fruit.

Jello pinwheels – These just look so fun and colorful! My niece and nephew had fun peeling them apart and eating them. I used parchment paper and didn’t need to use any oil or spray to keep the gelatin from sticking to the pan. As a result, I think the rolls held together better. With no microwave, I did everything over the stove. Sometime I want to try this with fruit juice and Knox instead of the flavored Jello gelatin mix. Check out this flower arrangement (made by someone else)!

Peasant’s bread – Only 5 ingredients needed! I’ve been wanting to make this for a while. It turned out great! I used 3 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour and 1 cup of wheat flour, and baked it all in a 2.5L Pyrex bowl (15 minutes at 425 degrees and 22 minutes at 375 degrees.) It takes a little time, as you have to wait for it to rise, but otherwise it’s quite an easy recipe. The sides were nice and crispy and inside very soft with just the right sponginess. Definitely a keeper bread recipe.

Coconut gelatin – Similar to what my mom used to make. I used Aroy-D coconut milk (from a carton, to avoid potential BPA in cans), Knox gelatin, and homemade soy milk. I like to take some of the liquid (before heating) and bloom the Knox in it first. It turned out well, and I’ll likely make this again, though I may experiment with making the two-layer Coconut gelatin (it has a translucent layer and a white layer.)

I’ll try to take pics next time. 🙂

Juicing

The last time I visited my parents, I brought back their juicer, as they don’t use it very much…And I’ve been juicing! Not everyday, but maybe about 2-3 times a week. I’d like to get more veggies in.

Here’s what I’ve been juicing:
5-7 ribs of romaine lettuce
4 stalks of celery
1 carrot
1 apple
1 orange
A small piece of ginger
A slice of lime

It tastes so good and so fresh! To get the most amount of nutrition, it’s best to drink it soon after juicing, as oxidation will occur. But you can also store it in the fridge.

Adding carrots and fruits makes the juice sweeter and adds flavor. (Pure veggie juice can be a little hard to drink for most people.) However adding too much fruit can cause your blood sugar to spike. I’d like to slowly increase the percentage of vegetables in my juices as we get used to the taste – hopefully up to 70%.

In case you are curious, I’m using the Champion (Household) Juicer. It’s a pretty heavy duty juicer – you can even use it to make fruit “ice cream” and nut butters. There are many other smaller, less expensive juicers, such as the L’Equip Juicer, Omega Juicer, and Breville Juice Extractor.

Fish

We bought this at the grocery store, where it was degutted and cleaned. It was moving when we paid for it, and still moving after bringing it home, over 30 minutes later…! I guess that’s one way to know you the fish is fresh!

Durian Sticky Rice

I always try a new recipe containing durian when I visit my parents. This time, we had some leftover sticky rice to use up, and so I made durian sticky rice! I used a recipe adapted from this recipe for Coconut Sticky Rice with Mango. (Mangoes aren’t currently in season, so durian was a great option!)

Durian sticky rice

The steps are pretty easy:

Steam the sticky rice for about 25-30 minutes.
Make a coconut syrup by heating a can of coconut milk with 3/4 cup sugar (or however much according to your preference) and a pinch of salt (medium heat).
After the sticky rice is done, mix in half of the coconut syrup and let it sit for about 30 minutes.
Spoon some of the sticky rice into a bowl and top with some slightly mashed durian.
Add more of the coconut syrup, and some toasted sesame seeds if you’d like.

Banana bread with durian filling

Thanks to my durian-loving friends on Facebook, I’ve been inspired to write my first blog entry on nancykho.com. I’ve blogged before about my durian recipes on everythingdurian.blogspot.com, but I think I may and start writing about everything here.

Banana bread with durian filling

To make this, basically start by making your favorite banana bread recipe. I used this recipe from allrecipes.com (but also added some applesauce.)

Mash a few pieces of durian. I used 4-5 pieces for 2 loaves. Durian has just the right texture and is a wonderful filling.

Instead of pouring all of the batter in the pan, pour about half. Next, add a layer of durian, and then pour the rest of the batter in.

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean.