On the 27th of June, each year, it is my great pleasure to cook dinner for 20 friends. While the main course for tonight is still undecided, for dessert, at least, I'll be using the Panna Cotta recipe I posted a couple of weeks ago, as a base, but shifting it up slightly, by adding at touch of maple syrup and some orange zest. I'll be serving the Panna Cotta, too, with a tomato-type 'jam', by first poaching the tomatoes, (pictured above) then boiling them down in a mixture of sugar, water and cinnamon. (Cinnamon you say, and tomatoes? I'll let you know what my friends say!) More shots, and recipes of the evening to come!
PANNA COTTA with CINNAMON TOMATO 'JAM'
FOR THE PANNA COTTA: Put 6 tablespoons of water into a heavy base saucepan. Stir in 4 teaspoons of unflavored powdered gelatin. It’s not much water, so this almost looks like a small paste. Add to this 3 3/4 cups of heavy cream, and a teaspoon of salt. Put the heat on to low-medium and stir until the gelatin dissolves. In a separate bowl, whisk together 3 cups of plain natural yogurt (not Greek), 3/4 cup of honey or maple syrup, 1 teaspoon of pure almond extract, and the zest of one whole orange. then whisk in the warm cream mixture. Pour into glass jam jars, or small dessert bowls and leave to set in the fridge overnight, or for at least 8 hours. FOR THE TOMATOES: take 5 organic tomatoes and criss cross their bottoms and quickly blanch them in boiling water. Drain on a paper town and Peel off skin. Chop roughly and set aside. Put one cup of sugar and one cup of water in a saucepan and stir on low heat until the sugar dissolves. Place the chopped tomatoes into the sugary mixture and boil down, until most of the water has evaporated and the consistency is jammy. Pour into a jar, cover and refrigerate too. TO SERVE: Bring the Panna Cotta out of the fridge, divide up tomatoes and place on top of each of the small glass jars of Panna cotta.
Serves 20, as a accompaniment dessert. (My dear friend Claire is making her Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake to go with it).
(Pic Dimity Jones)