Coconut sticky rice with banana parcels

Serves 8 | 40 mins cooking | 15 mins preparation

This is a quick and simple way to make coconut sticky rice in the rice cooker rather than the usual faffing around doing it the traditional way. You can use this base coconut sticky rice for many different deserts like this banana wrapped parcels or Mango sticky rice

Ingredients

2 cups sticky rice – soaked for atleast 4 hours or ideally overnight
1 can coconut milk
1/2 cup white sugar
pinch of salt
4 bananas – small ones sliced in half lengthways
16 squares of banana leaf 30x30cm – or 8 squares of foil instead of banana leaves

Method

Place the soaked and drained sticky rice into the rice cooker with 2 cups of water, turn on to cook
Place the coconut milk, sugar and salt in to a microwaveable bowl and microwave for two minutes. Stir to ensure the sugar is fully dissolved
When the rice cooker has finished add the coconut milk mixture to the rice and mix together well. Turn the rice cooker back onto cook. Once it has finished cooking and all the coconut milk has been absorbed (you may have to turn the rice cooker back on again for a little longer) remove the rice and allow to cool slightly.
Place two squares of banana leaf on top of each other with the ribs running in opposite directions and microwave them in high for 20 seconds to soften the leaves.
Spread an 1/8th of the rice mixture onto the banana leaf and place a banana half in the middle.
Form the sticky rice around the banana and then roll the banana leaf around to form a parcel with the ends folded underneath. repeat this for the 8 parcels.
Place the parcels into the steamer and steam for 10 minutes.