Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

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Panna Cotta

Posted July 09, 2010
Find more about summer , panna cotta , dessert
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Okay, that is just so fancy it's not even funny. Now you probably imagine that my whole house looks like a Pottery Barn catalogue, and, looking at this photo, I'm kind of imagining that too.

Part of the inspiration for making it this week came from an odds-and-ends assortment of dairy products that were begging to be used up.

There are so few steps to making this, and it is so utterly simple, that here I'm just showing you a picture of measured milk.

Gelatin, melting in the pot. It is only just the slightest bit horse-hoofy while it's heating. No biggie.

I have a somewhat sentimental assortment of ramekins that are from many different moments of my life, but you could use mugs or teacups or small bowls or even paper cups. It doesn't matter.

Okay, this is a more accurate portrayal of how I serve these.

Everybody loves them.

Even people whose faces visibly fall when they realize that there's nothing chocolate occurring.

A friend of mine was recently describing to me how a grave illness and long recovery had returned him to the tastes of his long-ago childhood: soft foods, white foods, glasses of juice, dishes of tapioca. This is a person who, a year ago, would have served you coq au vin with 5 or 6 glasses of whatever robust wine the hen had simmered in and a stinking blue cheese for dessert, and so this shift is something of a surprise. But I understand it.

After Ben was born I became somewhat fixated on the little treats I might procure and eat during the day; having just given birth to one, I was suddenly like a child myself. Partly, it was the last stage of a pregnancy-induced gastronomic landslide that had left only the rubble of Life cereal and Saltines, tinned apricots and French fries and strawberry ice cream. Sweet, bland, comforting foods that could be spooned up or shoveled in without a lot of the flavor I found so alarming at the time. And then, postpartum, there was the, you know, postpartumness of it all. I wept into bowls of Cozy Shack rice pudding and ate egg salad sandwiches snifflingly and cried when a friend brought me a smoothie. I was ravenous on the one hand, and depressed on the other, and also falling in love.

But also, when I was still shuffling around all hunched-over in my little-old-lady-had-a-c-section way, small treats gave me just the right excuse to leave the house. I would bundle Ben into the Bjorn and hobble out to Emily's bakery, which was three blocks away and where I could get a lemon-poppyseed muffin that I would eat nibblingly at home. I would bundle Ben into the Bjorn and walk three blocks the other way to the café on Mission Street, where I would order a steamed milk with almond syrup and get talked to by the surfer from central casting who played the role of barista. "Little dude's sleepin'. Little dude's, like, totally asleep in there. That's, like, his whole job. Just sleepin' and chillin' and being the baby. Little dude, you're totally the baby!" Also, talking to Ben in the Bjorn gave him an excuse to look directly at my leaking and tremendous breasts.

But mostly I shuffled across the street to Marcello's, which is closed now, but where I could point gravely into the dessert case and be sent home with something called a Russian Cream: a sort of a gelled vanilla-scented sour cream that came in a disposable plastic cup, cost one dollar, and into whose sweet and tangy creaminess I could drown many a sorrow. I have never seen a Russian Cream before or since, and when I looked it up on epicurious, I got only a recipe for Prune and Caraway Ice Cream (add beets and call it "borscht gelato"!).

Panna cotta is, for me, the next best thing. It's like a creamy vanilla pudding, but with none of the eggy flavor of a typical pudding, and also with a different texture: more cool and slidey because of the gelatin, more quivery and delicate. It is the perfect foil for summer fruits of all kinds, but especially raspberries, because then you don't have to do a single thing to them but toss them on top of the panna cotta. I love, love, love it, and it's one of those things that you serve people and they're like, "You made this?" and you're like, "In three minutes, yes, I made that." Also, if you have any friends who just had a baby, they will be happier (and sadder) than they know how to say.

Panna Cotta
Serves 8
Active time: 5 minutes; total time: 4 hours

Honestly, I would bother to unmold these only if I were having Barrack Obama to dinner or if someone in my house were having a really bad day. Not that it's hard to, but I actually like eating them out of little dishes. However, if you are planning to unmold them, rub the ramekins with a little vegetable oil first. One more thing: you should feel free to try any combination of milk and cream and half and half that suits you. Or try adding a little yogurt or buttermilk or--duh! why haven't I?--sour cream. Let me know how it works out.

1 envelope unflavored gelatin (about 1 tablespoon)
2 tablespoons cold water
3 cups half and half (or a combination of cream and milk)
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In a very small saucepan sprinkle the gelatin over the water and let it stand about 1 minute to soften. Heat the gelatin mixture over low heat until the gelatin melts and dissolves and remove pan from heat.

In a medium-sized pot, bring the half and half and sugar just to a boil over moderately high heat, stirring. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the vanilla and the gelatin mixture (I swirl a little of the hot cream mixture into the gelatin pot to get out the dregs). Divide the cream mixture among eight 1/2-cup ramekins or teacups or small bowls (this is easiest if you pour it into a pitcher, or the measuring cup you already used) and cool to room temperature. Chill the ramekins, covered, at least 4 hours or overnight (I put them all on a small, rimmed baking sheet for easy covering--I use a single piece of plastic wrap--and easy transport to and from the fridge.)

Serve them right out their dishes with berries or berry sauce (I like to add just enough sugar--maybe a tablespoon--to sliced strawberries to get them to juice up). Or, be fancy and unmold the panna cotta: dip the ramekins, 1 at a time, into a bowl of hot water for 3 seconds; run a thin knife around the edge of each ramekin and invert the ramekin onto the center of a small plate.

Get a printable version of this recipe.

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Panna Cotta

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About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

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