Who Is The Red Flash?

hard at work as usual, piloting my desk headlong into a storm of middle aged women and rabbits suffering terribly from hutch fever, i was perusing the usual catalogue of food and pornography related news media that i like to keep abreast of (ha ha, breast). i was struck by a particularly neat idea. it wasn’t, in fact, my idea, it was from the woderful website the kitchn. it was for a remarkably tasty sounding rosewater and blueberry yoghurt panna cotta. I’ve had a hankering to do something with roses for a while now. ever since my neighbourhood burst into bloom. it’s probably the best thing about english summer, the smell of all the roses lining the approach to smith and co hq is intoxicating and delightful (although i did have a can of jd and coke with lunch – classy). On top of this infatuation with the rose, i love panna cotta. it’s easy, quick (apart from the chilling time), and it never fails to impress. this recipe suggests substituting some or all of the cream for yoghurt, to give it a bit of a tang.

i didn’t actually follow the recipe on the kitchn, rather i used one that i’d had considerable success with in the past. being me, and something of an impulsive type, i bought a tub of organic sheeps milk yoghurt for about as much tang as is possible. i also had a slightly different plan for the  rosewater. i decided to make rosewater and mint syrup, from scratch i might add ( it was pretty freakin easy: get a rose, remove the petals, rinse petals, steep in hot water with one or two mint leaves) i had fully intended to make rose syrup caviar, but my technique was incorrect and i wrecked the whole lot of the syrup, annoyingly. -morre about my attempts at molecular gastronomy in a later post.  here’s my recipe for the panna cotta:

i forgot to take fotos of the actual pannacotta, but i think you'll agree that this is a pretty faithful representation. the rays coming off the side are rays of awesome

• 2 gelatine leaves

• 30 ml milk

• vanilla pod

• 350ml organic goats milk yoghurt.

• 100ml cream

soak the gelatine in cold water.
put milk & yoghurt & vanilla pod intoa saucepan and simmer gently until it thickens.

whip the cream with vanilla sugar (you do have some right?)

fold the two together, put in molds, chill until set.

the first one that we had was nice, although the texture was somewhere between a lovely creamy pannacotta and a coarse ricotta cheesecake, and the taste was probably slightly over tangy. so i came up with yet another friggin genius idea.  add awesome greek honey and a little grated chocolate, and serve with a vacuum expanded grapefruit and limoncello sorbet.

what a combo, the honey just took away all the (frankly) sourness of the yoghurt.
it would probably have been nice with some sore sugar in the original mix also. and perhaps some blanched hazelnuts.
- ah that gives me an idea…