PANNA COTTA with STRAWBERRY COULIS…Elegant & Sublime!

Deeba @ PAB

16 years ago

“Good food gladdens the heart.”

Author Unknown

Panna Cotta with Strawberry Coulis…

An elegant, simple Italian dessert. Creamy & incredibly satisfying! Having read about it several times, I always wondered of how beautiful & versatile something like this would be. Somehow never got down to making it till now when strawberries started showing up in the market. Sublime…& a sure winner. DH loved it & the kids found it AWESOME!!

The pudding before it was sent to chill!!

I scoured plenty of recipes on the net, & I finally settled for this one from Good Morning America by Chef Emeril Lagasse…I had to do one with strawberry coulis. Coulis is a French sauce which can be sweet or savoury, depending on what it is meant to accompany.There are as many sauces as there are versions of panna cotta on the web. A hot caramel sauce, a mocha sauce, a chocolate sauce, a mango sauce…the list is endless. And then the versions…a chocolate panna cotta, strawberry, mango, pistachio, a cookie base…how much more versatile can an eggless desert get. This is one desert I shall explore more & more!!

“Panna cotta is an Italian dessert made by simmering together cream, milk and sugar, mixing this with gelatin, and letting it cool until set. An Italian phrase which literally means “cooked cream”, it generally refers to a creamy, set dessert from the Northern Italian region of Piedmont. It is eaten all over Italy where it is served with wild berries, caramel or chocolate sauce. It is not generally known exactly how or when this dessert came to be, but some theories suggest that cream, for which mountainous Northern Italy is famous, was historically eaten plain or sweetened with fruit or hazelnuts.”

Recipe as modified from GMA, which I adapted it a bit here & there.

Ingredients:

For the custard:

Cream – 400ml

Whole Milk – 1 cup

Sugar – 1/2 cup

Zest of 1 orange

Gelatin – 1 1/2 tbsps

Water – 1/4 cup/warm

For the Strawberry Coulis:

Strawberries – 200gms

Sugar – 1/4 to 1/2 cup

Zest of 1 orange

Water – 2 tbsp

Method:

To make the panna cotta:
Combine the cream + milk + sugar + zest in a pan & simmer till it comes to a slow boil.
In the meantime, warm the 1/4 cup water & sprinkle the gelatin over it & leave to soften. (Since I increased the gelatin from the original recipe, it didn’t quite soften completely.Also became a dense glob! So I stirred in a little more warm water & then strained it.)
Take the milk/cream mixture off the heat. Whisk in the gelatin & pour into ramekins 0r bowls. I saw a recipe in which they even used a cupcake tray!

Leave to set/chill for 4 hours minimum to overnight.
To make the strawberry coulis:
Quarter the strawberries & put in pan with remaining ingredients. Simmer just till sugar dissolves.
Remove immediately, cool & blend. Strain & chill.

To serve:
To demould, place the bowls in warm water for 15 seconds & turn onto serving platter. Drizzle with strawberry coulis
OR, Serve in bowls with strawberry coulis on top. (I found this version simpler, though will get proper moulds & try it demoulded again.)
Garnish with sliced strawberries & serve.

Demoulded OR…

… Served in bowls

Zorra at Kochtopf has a LOVEly event on for Valentines…‘A Heart for your Valentine‘ & invites us to treat our Valentine with something sweet or savory but always heart-shaped or heart-decorated. Here’s an ‘edible heart ‘ & a sweet one at that for her event…

Share this: