Recipe: Vanilla Panna Cotta

The first time I tried a Panna Cotta was as part of the Restaurant Week India. It was a mango Panna Cotta. As soon as I took a mouthful, I fell in love with this dessert. The lack of availability in the nearby restaurants in Navi Mumbai drove me to creating this delicacy at home.

My very first attempt: Panna Cotta with fresh strawberry sauce

I followed the recipe from this website:

http://www.expatrecipe.com/2011/01/29/vanilla-panna-cotta/

I'm pasting the same here with my comments:

Serves 3-4

Ingredients
Panna Cotta:

1 cup heavy cream  (I used 200 ml Amul Cream)

3/4 cup milk (I used 250ml tetra pack milk; not slim or skimmed versions)

1/2 cup white sugar (I used 125 g caster sugar)

2 tsp vanilla essence

3 tsp powdered gelatin (Hardcore vegetarians! Please note that gelatin is a non-vegetarian product. Somewhere in the near future, I will attempt the recipe with agar-agar for vegetarians. Will update this with the same then. I'm a eggaterian myself. But gelatin was not a deal breaker for me)

3 tbsp cold water

Strawberry sauce:

200gm fresh strawberries, quartered

1tsp vanilla essence

1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup water

Method
Panna Cotta:

1. Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a bowl and let stand 5 to 10 minutes.
2. Combine milk, cream and sugar in a saucepan and bring almost to boil. Turn off heat and add vanilla essence.Stir well.
3. Melt gelatin over double boiler or microwave for 15 seconds. Stir in gelatin until it has dissolved. (I microwaved it.)
4. Add the melted gelatin into the milk-cream mixture and stir well.
5. Pour the Panna Cotta mixture into ramekins. (I used glass bowls)
6. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or until set.

Strawberry sauce:

1. Combine the strawberries, vanilla essence, sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat.
2. While the mixture cooks, crush the strawberries with a potato masher.
3. Simmer the sauce until the sugar has dissolved and the sauce has thickened, for about 10 minutes
4. Let it cool

To serve

1. Dip the outside of the mold quickly in a bowl of hot water to loosen and invert onto serving plates. (Poke the edges gently with a flat object to ease the process)
2. Pour the sauce over it.

Panna Cotta with fresh orange sauce and ready-made strawberrry sauce

The orange sauce was made using the same method as that of the strawberry sauce mentioned here.

Enjoy!  :)