Story🔗

Weekend starts on Friday if A works from home and we get to have lunch together. This Friday is one of those lunch-home-together days. To celebrate, I decided to tribute the last two best of the season mangos into mango sticky rice. On Sunday, I improvised a milk-free waffle for A's recent medication restriction.

Mango Sticky Rice🔗

For us, mango sticky rice is like Thanksgiving for mangos. It's to show the gratitude of the rare occurrence of good mangos that we make the dessert that's destined for them.

Mango sticky rice is one of those classics with so few ingredients and so simple steps that really highlights the original flavor of every single ingredient and their dynamics together. You really get to appreciate the pristine deliciousness if using high quality ingredients.

The backbone recipe literally uses only three things: mango, sticky rice and coconut milk. The star of the show, aka best mango of the season if not all time, is bestowed by the mango goddess for my persistent pursuit, or as far as I believe. It was purchased from a very Mexican supermarket called El Bajio Market in Merced 2.5 hrs south of Bay Area. I was there for work for the week. One day I strolled into the market not looking for particular things, just checking out what local markets offer as one of the routines whenever visiting a new place. The entire market spells Mexican (quite literally) that doesn't interest me in picking up anything until I almost got to the exit where lies a huge cardboard crate full of mangos. A sign on it wrote the few English words in the store "Sale! Mango $0.99/ea". The mangos speak for themselves that they are the chosen ones, good color, good feel, good smell. I picked up one, then got another one, and then got another two, then looking at my full hands of four, nah, and cradling them to the checkout. Now I wish I had got 2^n, where n=log(max # of mangos that fit into the fridge). How greedy I am now is how rarely we encounter such a good variety.

The sticky rice used this time is also a good one. It's the Taiwanese black glutinous rice. It has a unique earthy aroma and extra nutty texture compared to the regular white variety. The purply black color contrasts with yellow mango and white coconut milk, adding bonus visual points to the presentation.

Nutritionally, it should be considered as lunch, as it's fruit over creamy rice with no additional sugar. Actually, it's more indulgent than dessert. The natural sweetness from mango pairs with earthy nutty rice and creamy coconut milk so well that everything tastes sweet in a complex way, as if there is suddenly a full spectrum of mango flavor blooming in your mouth.

If you are in the Bay Area and have an insider tip on where to get good mangos. Please leave a comment below!

Milk-Free Way-Too-Healthy Waffle (Sweet Potato Celery)🔗

A started a medication this weekend that's mutually exclusive with any dairy and even nondairy alternatives. No milk or coconut milk. As a result, I improvised quite a Frankenstein waffle batter. It's made of

• egg
• mashed sweet potato
• celery puree
• flour mix, half of normal amount
• coconut oil

Milk is great in making pancake or waffle batter as itself has a good ratio of water, protein and fat. Using the above ingredients I managed to get the batter to a similar consistency, however, it definitely contains much higher moisture than milk-based batter as celery and sweet potato both have high water content. For a high hydration batter like this, it's very hard to get a nonfloppy structure. Luckily, waffle iron is very forgiving as it does not require any high skill cap flipping. Even though the waffle is super soft and fragile, you can still easily unload it. With the extra surface area, it's as crispy as it gets. Not too bad for a milkless waffle.