Coconut Rice Recipe
Alvina Mangrai’s Burmese prawn curry was the recipe featured in our first ever Cooking with Grandma video. In the video, Alvina shows her granddaughter Alyssa how to make the curry that she first learned to make when she was pregnant and living in the United States after moving from Burma. To accompany the curry, she suggests making this coconut rice. Pat Tanumihardja, author of the blog The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook, transcribed the recipe and shared it with CHOW. She’ll also include it in her book, due out in either late 2009 or early 2010.
Game plan: To make perfect rice every time, Alvina suggests sticking your middle finger into the pot and letting it sit gently on top of the leveled rice; the liquid should come up to just below the second joint. This measurement seems to work regardless of finger size, the amount of rice, or how big your pot is!
Photograph by Michael Skrzypek
- 2 tablespoons oil
- 1/4 cup chopped onion
- 3 cups jasmine rice or any other long-grain rice, washed
- 1 (13.5-ounce) can coconut milk
- 2 1/2 cups water, or as necessary (see “Game plan” above)
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- Fried shallots for garnish
- In a large pot with a tightfitting lid, heat the oil over medium heat until it starts to shimmer. Add the onion and stir and cook until soft and translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the rice and stir to coat evenly with oil.
- Stir the coconut milk and pour it into the pot, followed by the water, salt, and sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil. Stir and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 35 to 40 minutes or until the water is absorbed and the rice is tender.
- Turn off the heat and let the rice rest on the stove, covered, for 5 to 10 minutes. When ready to serve, remove the lid and fluff the rice with a fork or chopsticks. Garnish with fried shallots.


@BigBurke. Making rice in a pot on the stove will leave a crust of cooked rice on the bottom of the pot. You can avoid it by using a nonstick pan. Or you can do what my Chinese family does by returning the pan to high heat (after scooping off the fluffy cooked rice) to further scorch the crust so that the underside is medium brown. Remove from heat, scrape off the crust and eat as a crunchy after-dinner snack.
I've made this recipe to a T, twice. Both times the bottom of the pan is covered in scorched rice. What am I doing wrong? Does this happen to other folks?
We did not eat much rice when I was growing up so I never really learned how to cook it. This method, however worked great. My wife who is first generation Bajan found it very odd that I was putting the rice in before the water, but it works just as well as her method if not better if you ask me. The coconut rice went over very well with a beef curry that I made. It helped take the edge off for the kids. Thanks a bunch.
That's the first way i learned to cook rice as a little girl from my Great grandma, it always works.