Here’s a recipe that brings great summer flavours in one yummy dessert: apricot, vanilla and orange blossom. The vanilla and orange blossom panna cotta blend perfectly with fruits that have moderate acidity.
This is simple and elegant and can either be served as a mini dessert or full-size dessert.
At the Merrion, we finish these with segmented apricots, green pistachios cut in half, dehydrated vanilla pod, gold leaf and melted dark chocolate. But you can just top the panna cotta and compote with a sablé biscuit.
Paul Kelly is executive head pastry chef at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin 2.
Vanilla and orange blossom panna cotta
Serves six
Ingredients
3 vanilla pods/or extract with seeds, to taste
150ml milk
600ml double cream
150g natural yoghurt
2 gelatine leaves, soaked in cold water
60g caster sugar
35ml orange blossom water
For the apricot compote
200g frozen apricot cubes (defrosted), or fresh apricots, chopped
30g sugar
Seeds from 1 vanilla pod
For the sablé biscuits (makes 18, more than you need for this recipe, but you can freeze some of the dough for another time)
1 whole egg
250g flour
95g icing sugar
30g ground almonds
150g butter
Method
1 Start by splitting the vanilla pods and scaping out the seeds. Add the pods and seeds to the saucepan with the milk and cream and bring to the boil. Reduce to a gentle simmer and cook until the mixture thickens. This will take about 20 minutes. Add natural yoghurt.
2 Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for five minutes before adding the drained, soaked gelatine and sugar. Whisk to dissolve and allow to cool. Strain the cooled mixture through a fine sieve and add a dash of orange blossom water, to taste.
3 Chill the mix until it is almost starting to set before pouring into glasses. Transfer to the refrigerator and leave until fully set.
4 To make the apricot compote: Mix all ingredients together in a saucepan. Bring to a boil then allow to cool. You can leave chunky, or puree it if you want it smooth.
5 To make the sablé biscuits, mix all the ingredients together to form a smooth paste. Allow this to rest in the fridge for two hours.
6 Roll the biscuit dough out quite thin (0.3cm). Cut into circles to fit the top of your glasses, and if you want it to look fancy, cut smaller circle from centre.
7 Bake in the oven at 160 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes and sprinkle with granulated sugar immediately after removing from the oven.
8 To serve, spoon the compote over the set panna cotta and top with sablé biscuit.
Kitchen Cabinet is a series of recipes from chefs who are members of Euro-Toques Ireland, who have come together during the coronavirus outbreak to share some of the easy, tasty things that they like to cook and eat at home #ChefsAtHome
