coconut and chai spice and everything nice....

Earlier this week, as I was getting out the ingrdients to make fish chowder, I spied a can of coconut milk in the cupboard and became bound and determined to use it somehow in making dinner. Suddenly things just had to get a little exotic.

I had a sample packet of Lemongrass and of Ginger from Gourmet Garden which got slathered on the salmon fillet, with crushed coriander, a bit of lemon juice. While that marinated, I scanned Epicurious.com for recipes involving coconut milk and rice rather than just shuffling things together willy-nilly. I really couldn't find anything that a) I had all the ingredients on hand for or b) suited my needs. But I did find some inspiration.

Half the coconut milk I heated a bit with some hot madras curry powder, turmeric, and garlic then set it aside. I made a simple saffron rice for the meal and some sauteed until just limp onions and bell pepper. The fish was simply broiled until flaky. Overall it was pretty good, next time, I think I need to incorporate some fresh lime. I also think tuna steaks over the grill would be better.

Now dessert was another matter. The way I saw it was that I had rice, I had coconut milk, and bananas. I didn't think really I could go wrong. So on a whim I tossed a Celestial Seasonings India Chai Spice teabag into the rice water and let it steep until the water was boiling and I could add the rice. I let that cook, unsalted until it soaked up all of the tea (it smelled wonderfull, let me tell ya), then added 1 cup of coconut milk, 1 1/4 cups milk, 1/3 cup sugar and let it thicken to get all pudding-y. While that was thickening, I tossed a few tablespoons of butter into a med hot skillet, let that melt and added some fresh grated ginger and allspice and a chunk of dark brown sugar. When that had gotten melted and bubbly, I blended it into some slice bananas, tranferred the pudding into a bowl and spread the mixture over the top.

The results were quite tasty -- in the future I'd use more coconut milk, and use the tea bag in milk to boil the rice. However, the chai/rice was so fragrant and soothing while the fresh ginger in the brown sugar perked things up a bit.