A LOTTA PANNA COTTA

It’s on every menu, at every dinner party. Panna cotta is HUGE. So here’s a huge one.

It’s delicate, silky, cool, light and rich; all the good things. But I haven’t made panna cotta for years, mainly because I used to make it for years.

Then I came across a Giant Panna Cotta from Shilpa Uskokovic on the American food site Bon Appetit and went ‘wow, great idea’.

Then I went ‘how do I pinch that?’, spent a day worrying about intellectual property, then pinched the idea anyway (not the recipe, that’s mine), with full credit.

I figure that a panna cotta built for sharing is an idea worth sharing as well. (Will that stand up in court?)

Why is a large-format panna cotta such a good idea?

Because you don’t have to turn it upside down to serve it.

Because you can make it the day before (in fact, you have to).

Because it will command attention as a fresh re-boot, instead of “oh, she’s still doing panna cotta”.

And because I’ve been here before: a large, shimmering dish of panna cotta reminds me of the large, shimmering dish of junket my mother would make with the creamy milk stored in jugs in the fridge from the daily milking.

Panna cotta (which means ‘cooked cream’) dates from the contemporary menus of northern Italy in the 1970s, although there is an argument that its origins were the dishes of naturally set, fresh, rich cream from the dairy farms around Piemonte and Val d’Aosta.

It’s usually set into small individual moulds because it’s very rich, so doing a big one is quietly revolutionary. I’ve cut back the traditional sweetness because I find cream itself is inherently quite sweet, and I’ve cut the richness by balancing the cream with milk, and by serving it with something acidic.

Mandarins are in season, so I added a spoonful of orange blossom water to the cream, and served with little mandarin segments and a good squeeze of juice (it’s too sweet already to take a caramel or syrup). If you want to do the same, look for the larger, vibrantly coloured murcotts, cut them into thick slices, then cut out the segments, trim off the skin, and squeeze the end slices for the juice.

Berries are always beautiful with panna cotta, maybe puddled on top with a little berry liqueur; or just whiz some frozen berries into a syrup to pour over just before serving. It would also be charming with figs, poached quinces, or prunes in a coffee syrup.

Tip:  I use gelatine in leaf form because it has a more subtle, clean set to it than the powder; this quantity of cream and milk ( one litre) takes 3 sheets of gold-strength gelatine.

PANNA COTTA TO SHARE

Serves 6 to 8

• 400 ml full cream milk

• 600 ml thickened cream

• 100 g caster sugar

• 1 tbsp orange blossom water

• 3 gelatine leaves, gold strength

Heat the cream, milk, sugar and orange blossom water in a saucepan and slowly bring to a bare simmer, stirring until the sugar has dissolved, without allowing it to boil.

Turn off the heat and set aside while you soak the gelatine leaves in cold water for 5 minutes until soft and floppy.

Squeeze excess water from the gelatine and add to the hot cream, stirring well until fully dissolved.

Strain into a ceramic serving bowl or quiche dish and allow to cool.

Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for eight hours or overnight, on a level surface.

Serve with…. anything you like.

And guess what? You CAN turn it out, if you want. I just ran a knife around the outside (not very well) and inverted it, see here. Glory be.

Thanks for dropping by! Thanks also to Shilpa and Bon App, for sharing. Special thanks to Terry for the beautiful mandarins that made me think I should do a post about mandarins that turned into a post about panna cotta.

I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s only fair, folks.