PANNA COTTA

Even though Sarah is trained as a savory cook, by default she has also been doing baked goods and desserts at Rich Table. She doesn’t think of herself as a pastry chef, but her success proves otherwise. Desserts have been among some of the most popular items at Rich Table since it opened over a year ago. There is always pressure to keep some of the old favorites on the menu, but there is also pressure to introduce new items on a fairly constant basis.

Two recent additions are:

Blue corn cake with honey-griddled plums, and vanilla ice cream. This dessert is a riff on Sarah’s favorite cornbread recipe, but made with blue corn meal. I suspect that comes from her interest in New Mexico traditions. She also has a good source for blue cornmeal from  Tierra Vegetables in the farmers market at the San Francisco Ferry Building.

Blue corn cake with honey-grilled plums and vanilla ice cream

Bittersweet chocolate ganache with almond butter crunch and passion fruit meringue.

Bittersweet chocolate ganache with almond butter crunch and passion fruit meringue

Panna cotta is one of the old favorites, but Sarah has come up with lots of variations that have kept it popular and fresh. Some of those variations include buttermilk, coconut, and more recently cream cheese.  Panna cotta is a cousin of flan, crema catalana, and crème brûlée. Those custards are made with eggs which are cooked gently to provide thickening. Panna cotta has gelatin added for the thickening agent. In commercial kitchens, leaf or sheet gelatin is the form most commonly used, but that form is not often available in grocery stores and is a little trickier to use. That’s ok, because a perfectly good panna cotta can be made with the granulated form, although you may need to experiment and cut back on the amount of the gelatin if the finished panna cotta too firm for your taste.

Sarah’s current cream cheese panna cotta is delicious, but if you want to try it at home you will need to tinker with the amount of gelatin you use. The firm texture of the cream cheese sets up too hard with the usual amounts of gelatin.

I think her buttermilk panna cotta is every bit as good. Sarah makes it with fresh cultured buttermilk that the restaurant gets when it house-churns its own butter. That’s not practical at home, but fresh commercial buttermilk will work. That’s my version below.

Straining berry mixture for the sauce base

Containers of berry sauce lines up to go into the cold room

Blackberries

Raspberries

Strawberries

Blackberries and raspberries

Sauce with mixed berries

Chunks of cream cheese before blending

Blending panna cotta mixture

Mixing cream cheese with immersion blender

Sheet gelatin set to soak

Gelatin bloomed and ready to be added to the panna cotta mixture

Heated cream ready to receive the gelatin

Individual panna cottas ready to be chilled

RECIPE

Panna Cotta

Ingredients

• ¼ cup water
• 1 packet unflavored gelatin
• 1½ cups heavy cream
• 1½ cups buttermilk
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons orange blossom water
• 1 tablespoon Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur (optional)

Method

1. Place the water in a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over the top. Let stand for 5 minutes or until the gelatin softens. Do not let it stand too long or it will turn into a solid blob that is hard to dissolve.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine the cream, buttermilk, and sugar. Bring to a  boil for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.
3. Using a whisk or immersion blender, stir in the softened gelatin. Stir for at least a minute. Make sure that the gelatin is completely dissolved. Otherwise it will sink to the bottom and form a separate gelled layer.
4. Stir in the orange blossom water and optional Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur.
5. Pour into 6 6-ounce cups. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 3 hours or overnight.
6. Serve with fresh berries or your choice of toppings.