A Tasty and Easy Company Dessert For Holiday Recovery. Panna Cotta.

   

   This weekend I cooked the first real meal since I got sick on New Years day. Alans' cousin Joan came up from Berkeley for a visit and I prepared an easy old school Italian dinner. Lobster and saffron risotto, a blood orange salad with Sicilian olives, and for dessert, Vanilla Panna Cotta with a Raspberry Coulis, and some Pistachio Sea Salt Brittle.

   It has been a while since I've made Panna Cotta and so looking through my recipes, I decided to go with something from a friend. I've known Judy Witts Francini aka Divina Cucina for a few years and have always enjoyed cooking her recipes. She's a wonderful chef who happens to live in the same town as some of my Italian relatives, and a number of dishes I've gotten from her are now in my regular at home meal rotation. The Panna Cotta has just joined the list.
 
   I didn't get a chance to photograph the making of this dessert and I just have a leftover to show you as this stuff disappears fast once it's on the table. It's very simple to make so the instructions are as follows, I'm linking my pistachio brittle recipe here, and the raspberry coulis at the end, so here goes.

Vanilla Panna Cotta

Here's What You Need:
4 cups of heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 tsp powdered unflavored gelatin
6 Tbs ice cold water


Here's What To Do:

Heat the heavy cream and sugar in a small pot. Once the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a medium-sized bowl and let stand 5 to 10 minutes.

Pour the very warm Panna Cotta mixture over the gelatin and stir well until the gelatin is completely dissolved and blended into the cream

Divide the Panna Cotta mixture into lightly oiled (with a flavorless neutral tasting oil) custard cups, or you might do as I did and pour them directly into a wine or dessert glass or cup avoiding unmolding. 

Chill them until firm, which will take at least two to four hours. 

When they are firm, unmold them or serve them straight up in the glass you've poured them into .

Raspberry Coulis

Here's What You Need:
One  6 oz carton of fresh raspberries
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 and 1/2 Tbs water


Here's What To Do: 

Place the water and sugar in a small pot over medium heat. Stir it from time to time, until the sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes or so.

Put the raspberries and the sugar syrup in a blender and puree, or do as I did and use an immersion blender. Mix them together right int the pot.

Strain the raspberry puree  through a fine sieve to remove the seeds. You are good to go.

Drizzle some of the raspberry coulis over the  Panna Cotta, sprinkle a bit of finely chopped pistachio nut over it and then break off a piece of pistachio brittle and add it as a finishing touch.

  
   Easy and delicious, the perfect dessert for getting back to cooking again. Coming up next, more dishes for the season, follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Sweet, Salty and Crunchy. Munch A Bunch of Salted Pistachio Brittle.

   I think I should say straight up, I've never been much of a candy maker. All those scenes in Little Women where they're pulling taffy or buttering plates for fudge does not compute for me. These were not childhood memories. For one thing I spent years with braces on my teeth. These were not the days of invisiline or whatever they're calling the transparent tooth straightener they're using now a days. No, I come from the days of metal mouths, metal "horse bridles" all hooked together with rubber bands that were apt to snap and come shooting off at inopportune times, in unfortunate directions. What did that look like exactly???? Sort of like this. No, really like this.

Wearing these devices on my teeth made a lot of candy eating impossible , no fudge, no taffy, nothing chewy, and of course one of the most impossible candy was any sort of brittle. Nothing makes the rubber bands go flying faster than a nice sharp piece of hardened caramel. So of course when it came to making a brittle to go on top of my Mango Panna Cotta I was more than a little concerned. I didn't know how to do this.

   Brittle on the plate is a bit of a fad right now. After all, what's better on top of the smooth, creamy, and cold than something crunchy, or better yet, salty and crunchy. But as I recently found out, brittles can also be savory. Just recently we were served a sesame seed brittle on top of a roasted carrot in mole appetizer at the Glen Ellen Star Restaurant. It was amazing. But the brittle I was chasing was definitely a sweet one and as it turned out, those fancy schmancy little pieces of stained glass-looking sweets that I've found on my dessert plates lately are really easy to make, even for this candy amateur.  All it involves is some sugar and a little patience.

Salted Pistachio Brittle

Here's What You Need:
1 cup of sugar
1/3 cup of chopped roasted unsalted pistachios
1 Tbs large flake sea salt

Here's What To Do:
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Set it aside.
Pan roast the pistachios until they're lightly toasted.
Let them cool, chop them and set them aside.

Add 1 cup of sugar to a skillet.

Turn the heat to medium and let the sugar start to lightly caramelize. Don't stir the sugar but allow it to melt and turn light amber in color. As you can see, I changed pans as the sugar needs a large pan so that it all fits in one smooth layer.

As the sugar starts to melt at the edges of the pan, take a heat-proof spatula and push it toward the center of the pan.

Keep pushing the sugar toward the center as it melts and watch the sugar, as you don't want it to burn.

When the caramel has liquified and burned amber, CAREFULLY pour it onto the parchment paper or silpat mats in long streaks.

Smear the sugar out moving quickly. This stuff hardens damn fast!

Scatter the pistachios on top of the hot caramel.

Add the sea salt flakes.

Let it cool and set. This does not take long!
If you're not using it right away, store it in  a cool dry place....not the fridge.
Break off the pieces you plan on using and decorate the dessert as you wish.

There it is. Brittle! Don't just stop with pistachios either. You can of course make peanut brittle. You are only limited by imagination.

   Making this brittle I was reminded by an episode of Julia Child that i saw as a teenager. In it Julia was flinging scalding hot caramel at a broomstick in order to make  "moss" to decorate a Bouche De Noel. I was fascinated by the threads of sugar that magically turned into something that looked like it had been ripped from nature. Of course my mom was not that eager to have me try that.

   "Are you nuts?!!" was her response, but I have always wanted to do that. Always. Yet, I've never tried since the words "scalding" and "caramel" and "nuts" were always enough to put me off. But when I'd finished making this brittle and looked at my spoon, look at what I found....

   Little sugar threads. After all these years there I was, just one step away from flung caramel. My white whale, or rather my amber colored burning hot sugar. It's out there and one of these days I'm going to find it. Meanwhile, I'll settle for brittle. Coming up next a culinary tour of my hometown. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori.