This is classic rich coconut ice-cream, served in a Thai style. Thai ice-cream isn’t really iced cream, it’s often made from non dairy products. This recipe contains taro, a root vegetable whose starchiness gives the ice-cream a soft smooth texture. You can also use sweet potato if you cannot obtain taro.
This recipe is much easier if you have a hand blender, during the preparation you will need to blend the ice-cream repeatedly as it freezes, this is done to break up the ice crystals that form. It is much easier to do that with a handheld blender or egg beater. Finally, the decoration is made from a gummy coloured mixture of cooked sticky rice flour, this is also very typical Thai, but you can use whatever toppings you like, although not strictly Thai, rum soaked raisins are popular in my house among the adults.

Ingredients
800 ml Coconut Milk
200 gms Sugar
5 gms Salt
100 ml Skimmed Milk
75 gms Taro or Sweet Potato
5 gms Corn Flour
Ice-water To Rapidly Cool the Mixture

Preparation
1. Chop the taro or sweet potato into large cubes and steam until cooked through.
2. Heat the coconut milk in a sauce pan on a very low heat (about 55 degrees celsius, this is nowhere near boiling, it is simply hot to the touch).
3. Mix the corn flour with 100 ml water and add to the coconut milk in the saucepan.
4. Add the sugar, salt, and skimmed milk, to the saucepan and stir until everything is dissolve.
5. Warm it to 65 degrees C and keep stirring it. Do not let it boil.
6. Mash the taro cubes with a fork and add into saucepan and using a hand blender blender the contents of the pan until the mixture is completely smooth and the taro has disappeared into the liquid.
7. Warm the pan a little higher to 80 degrees C for 4 minutes. Again it must not boil. This is to cook the flour through, without permitting it to become a thick sauce.
8. The mixture should be cooled quickly and then put in the fridge, the best way to do with is to empty it into a containing that is sitting in ice water.
9. Once it is cool enough, put it into the freezer until frozen.
10. While it is freezing ice crystals will form, every few hours you should remove it from the freezer and blend it with a hand blender to break up the crystals.

Sticky Rice Ball Topping (Ruam Mid)

These are used as the topping, they have a gummy texture and a rose smell, if you prefer you can use vanilla essence in water for a vanilla smell or other fruit essences. You can use coconut essence if you really want to emphasize the coconut taste.

Ingredients
Red, Green and Yellow Food Colouring
9 Tablespoons Sticky Rice Flour (3 tablespoons for each colour)
4 1/2 Tablespoons Rose Water (1 1/2 tablespoons for each colour)
300 ml Cold Water
Water for boiling

Preparation
1. The colours need to be made up separately, steps 2 – 4 should be repeated for the red, green and yellow shapes in separate cups.
2. Drop the red food colorings into a cup and add 1 1/2 tablespoons of rose water.
3. Add 3 tablespoons of sticky rice flour to the cup and mix to a paste.
4. Pinch off small amounts of the paste and roll into tiny (corn sized) balls, or small sausages.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 for yellow and for green food colouring.
6. Boil water in a saucepan and drop the balls and sausages into the boiling water.
7. They will swell slightly when cooked, it only takes a couple of minutes. One cooked, scoop them out with a sieve and drop into the cold water.
8. Mix a few with the ice-cream just before serving

This is a potato side dish I adapted from an English cookbook I was given. We don’t use potatoes much in Thai cuisine, and almost no cream. So this dish has coconut milk instead of cream and a much stronger garlic taste, more typical of a Thai recipe. Serve this as a side dish with another meat or fish dish.

Ingredients (4 Persons)
1 Kg Potatoes
100 gms Onions
8 Cloves Garlic
4 Tablespoons Oil
Salt to taste
100 ml Coconut Milk

Preparation
1. Peel and place the potatoes in a pan of boiling water, simmer until half cooked. (Approx 10-15 minutes).
2. Drain and chop the potatoes into cubes, then salt to taste.
3. Fry the potatoes in the oil until they start to brown
4. Chop the onion and add to the pan.
5. Crush the garlic cloves, add to the pan and continue frying.
6. Once the onions are cooked, add the coconut milk and heat to just warm it through.
7. Serve garnished with coriander leaves or chopped spring onions.

Salim is sweet coloured mung bean noodles flavoured with jasmin. A traditional favourite of Thailand, although not very photogenic! There is a shortcut you can use if you don’t want to make the noodle, you can simply buy it and add colour it.

Ingredients
120 gms Mung Bean Flour
236 ml Water
1-2 Drops Of Jasmin Flavour
Food Color

Preparation
1. Mix the ming bean, water and color together (For each colour you make you need to start with fresh water to avoid the colour spreading).
2. Heat in a pan, stirring until the flour is cooked and has gone clear.
3. Press the gloopy mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl of icewater. It will set to form fine noodles.
4. Drain, then add the jasmin flavour.
5. Serve with coconut milk, sugar syrup and crushed ice

For this recipe you will need middle aged old coconut. Not quite young coconut, not old coconut, just middle aged. You can find this frozen in your Asian supermarket, as medium old coconut Mapow How or Mapow Roy Kanom.

Ingredients
500 gms Shredded Coconut Meat
300 gms Sugar
150 water
Food colouring

Preparation
1. Mix the sugar and water together. Heat and bring to the boil.
2. Boil the water off to a thick sugar syrup.
3. Add the shredded coconut, lower the heat and continue stiring until all the liquid has gone.
4. Let them cool a little, taking two teaspoons take out ball shaped lumps on the mixture and let them cool on a drying try.

This ring is made from young shredded coconut, bi-tua (pandan leaves) flavouring, nuts, and puffed rice. It’s Thailand’s version of crunch bars and eaten at the new year in April. I’ve pressed it into a tom yum pan to get that donut shape.

Ingredients
125 gms Rice Crispies ( Puffed Toasted Rice )
80 gms Peanuts
40 gms Ground Young Coconut
150 gms Sugar
2 tbsp. White Sesame Seeds
10 gms Bitua Leaves (Pandan Leaves)
200 ml Water

Preparation
1. In a dry hot frying pan, toast the sesame seeds until they are golden.
2. Toast the peanuts in the same way, until browned and leave to cool.
3. Blend the bi tua leaves with the water then sieve to get just the green water.
4. Into a saucepan, place the bi tua water and bring to the boil, add the sugar and ground coconut and stir until the water reduces and becomes sticky.
5. Add the remaining ingredients, and mix to make sure the sticky water covers all the ingredients.
6. Empty into a tom-tum pan, press flat, and leave to cool and set.

This dessert is a mung bean salty sweet dessert so typical of Thailand.

Ingredients For Base
60 gms Mung Bean Flour
800 ml Rose or Jasmin Water
150 gms Sugar
2-3 Food Coloring
Moulds for Setting

Preparation
1. Mix the flour, rose water, and sugar and stir until dissolved.
2. Warm over a medium heat, stir until it goes clear.
3. Fill the moulds to 2/3rds full.

Ingredients For the Coconut Topping
200 ml Coconut Milk
1 1/2 Tablespoon Rice Flour
1/4 Teaspoon Salt

Preparation
1. Mix all the ingredients, warm over a medium heat, stirring until the coconut thickens and rice flour is cooked through.
2. Turn off the heat.
3. Pour a thin layer over the mung bean mixture.
4. Sprinkle a few toasted sesame seeds to garnish

This is a delicious, slightly salt, slightly sweet, very filling dessert from Thailand. The salt balances the sweetness of the sauce and ripe mango. The sticky (glutinous) rice is like a solid rice pudding base to the dish.

Ingredient  For 4 people
100 gms Glutinous (Sticky) Rice
2 Mangos
200 ml Water
100 ml Coconut Milk
100 gms Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Rice Flour

Preparation
1. Soak the glutinous rice in some water (enough water to cover it) for 3-4 hours. This will make the sticky rice easier to cook.
2. Steam the rice for 15 minutes to cook it through.
3. Into a sauce-pan, put the water and sugar, and bring to the boil. The sugar should dissolve completely.
4. Add the cooked sticky rice into the sugar pan and stir well to mix it.
5. In a different sauce pan, put the coconut milk, the rice flour, and salt and cook it on a low heat for 5 minutes or until the coconut milk thickens from the flour.
6. Peel the mango and slice the flesh into thin slices.
7. To serve, put a bed of the sticky rice on a plate, followed by a layer of mango slices, and pour some of the coconut sauce over the top

Part sweet, part salt, part smooth, part rough. This dessert consists of many interesting contrasts!

Ingredients for Colored Balls
100 gms Shredded Medium-Old Coconut
100 gms Palm Sugar
300 gms Sticky Rice Flour
Warm Water
1 Tablespoon Cassava Starch Flour
Food Coloring

Preparation
1. Melt the palm sugar in a pan. Add the shredded coconut, and stir while heating until you have a well mixed sticky mixture.
2. Leave to cool, then take spoonfuls of this mixture and roll into 2cm diameter balls, these form the centres.
3. Mix the sticky rice flour, cassava starch, a drop or two of food colouring and enough of the warm water to form a smooth dough.
4. Mix the dough well, divide it into portions, so you have one portion for each of your sweet coconut centres.
5. Roll each portion into a ball then roll it flat to approx 6cm diameter disc. Wrap it round one of the coconut sweets to form a ball. Do this for all the sweets.
6. Boil a pan of water, drop the coloured balls in the pan and cook for 3-5 minutes. Remove and drop into cold water.

Ingredients for White Base
460 gms Coconut Milk
50 gms Rice Flour
Pinch Of Salt

Preparation
1. Mix the flour and salt and the coconut milk.
2. Heat over a medium heat, stirring until the mixture has thickened and the flour cooked through. This takes 2-3 minutes stirring after it thickens. The spoon into cups and add the balls.

The original name ‘coconut covered tapioca dessert’ was so boring, I thought I’d invent a new name for this dessert. Not turk-ish delight, Thai-kish delight, since it looks similar to the starch based famous Turkish dessert. You can’t really see it in the photograph, but there are beads of glistening tapioca inside.

Ingredients
220 gms Green Tapioca
500 ml Water
300 Sugar
200 gms Ground Coconut

Preparation
1. Into a saucepan, place the water. Bring to the boil.
2. Rinse the tapioca, and place in the boiling water.
3. Cook until the water has almost completely gone, add the sugar and continue cooking until the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat.
4. Pour onto a tray and leave to cool.
5. Cut the tray into rectangles, cover completely in ground coconut and serve

Soft, slightly sweet with a slight nutty flavour from the sesame seeds. That’s how I would describe this dessert. The dark yellow pieces in the picture are pieces of jack fruit.

Ingredients

• 30 gms Jack Fruit
• 120 gms Rice Flour
• 1 Tablespoon Cassava Starch
• 2 Tablespoons ( Pang Turw Yai Murm )or Corn Flour
• 150 gms Sugar
• 250 ml Coconut Milk
• 250 ml Evaporated Milk
• 250 ml Limestone Water (optional)
• Sesame Seeds
• 1-2 Drops Jasmin Flavour (optional)

Perparation
1. Mix the cassava starch, corn flour and rice flour together, then add the sugar.
2. Mix in the coconut milk, evaporated milk, limestone water, and jasmin flavour.
3. Heat in a saucepan over a medium heat, stirring continuously until the mixture becomes thick and sticky, then lower the heat and continue cooking for 1 minute to cook it through, then take off the heat.
4. Chop the jack fruit into small pieces, mix into the flour mixture.
5. Empty the mixture into a try, (a small lasagne tray works well), sprinkly the sesame seeds over the top, then leave to cool.
6. When its cold and set, remove from the tray and cut into squares