Categories
SOUPS/SAUCES/CONDIMENTS

Panna Cotta with strawberries and champagne

Panna Cotta, meaning “cooked cream”, a basic pudding with main ingredients dairy, sugar and gelatin, originated in Italy and its name literally means “cooked cream”. Play with the flavorings.  Use coconut milk, buttermilk or soy milk instead of milk and cream and flavorings, and serve it with sauces such as fruit purees, butterscotch sauce, or chocolate sauce.  This is a very versatile dessert and easy and quick to make.

PANNA COTTA

The Panna Cotta:
1½ sheet leaf gelatin
2 cups/500 ml full cream
70 g/2.5 oz castor sugar
beans from 2 vanilla pods

Once you have scraped the seeds from the vanilla pod, store it in an airtight container filled with sugar. This will provide you with vanilla flavored sugar in just a few days. (See my tip for storing vanilla pods in vodka!)

The strawberries:
½ bottle of champagne
150 g/5.2 oz castor sugar
about 20 strawberries, washed and hulled

Place the gelatin leaves in a bowl of cold water and leave to soak for 5-10 minutes until soft.

Pour the cream into a saucepan and stir in the sugar and the vanilla bean pulp. Bring almost to the boil, remove from the heat and place the pan over a bowl of ice cubes.

Remove the gelatin from the water and squeeze out any excess water with your hands. Stir the gelatin into the boiled cream and continue to stir until it has dissolved. When it has cooled, strain the cream into 4 ramekins. Cover and leave in the fridge for about 4 hours, until set.

Pour the champagne into a saucepan and add the sugar. Bring to the boil then pour over the strawberries in a bowl. Leave to cool.

To serve:
Invert the individual ramekins on each serving plate. Decorate with the strawberries and pour over a little of the juice.

STELLA's avatar

By STELLA

I have had no formal chef’s training. Classical piano was my parents’ choice, and that took care of the first 20 years of my life. Journalism and radio followed (my own choices, this time), and these opened many doors for me into different countries, people, cultures — and, of course, foods. In a six week series on radio I used it as a platform for my love of food and shared lots of interesting recipes and food news with listeners.
My earliest memories of food come from the family kitchen at home; I can still remember the wonderful smells of the dishes my mother prepared. I became aware of the flavors of her creations at an early age. Some I enjoyed and preferred, while others depressed me with their lack of interesting flavors. My mother was a good cook, but not a gourmet, and sadly this often showed. What I did appreciate was that she always involved me in the preparation, sharing her knowledge of nutrition, flavor, color, and the harmonies of each plate she dished up. She was also a genius with leftovers and quick meals when unexpected guests arrived. This is one of the things that stands out in my mind, and it inspired me to create wonderful dishes from leftover foods myself.

I carried on with the tradition of carefully planning meals to combine nutrition, color and flavor, while at the same time offering variety and elegant presentation. In the process, I developed a passion for seeking out the best available products, adhering to each season’s offerings, and treating it with the respect it deserves, which eventually became part of my daily culinary life and travels. I did these things not because I wanted to become a chef, but to satisfy myself, family and friends with creations of gorgeous food and exciting flavors. All of which, I hope, is reflected in this blog.