Panna Cotta

A delicious yogurt panna cotta that has a nice acidity, based on Gjusta/Gjelina recipe in their cookbook and online at https://herriottgrace.com/blogs/journal/gjelinas-panna-cotta

Ingredients

• 2 tsp unflavored gelatin

• 2 T cold water

• 1/2 vanilla bean

• 2 cups heavy cream

• Pinch kosher salt

• 1/2 cup sugar, minus ~1 tablespoon

• 1.5 cups Greek-style plain, full-fat yogurt (we used Wallaby)

Instructions

• Bloom gelatin in the 2 T water, ~3 min

• Meanwhile: halve vanilla bean & scrape seeds & pod into a small saucepan with the cream, salt, and sugar…stir over medium/medium-low heat until steaming & bubbles forming around the edges, then remove from heat

• Add gelatin to cream mixture & stir to incorporate

• Put yogurt in a medium mixing bowl, then slowly whisk in the hot cream

• Strain mixture through a fine mesh sieve into the serving container (e.g. 10x10” glass/metal baking dish)

• Refrigerate until set, ~2 hours

Toppings

Blueberry Compote

• ~1-2 cups fresh blueberries

• ~1-2 tablespoons sugar

• ~1-2 tablespoons lemon juice

• ~1-2 drops rose water (optional)

• Place ingredients (except rose water, if using), in a saucepan & bring to a low boil…then bring down to a simmer until thickened & berries are mostly popped

• we tend to use less sugar (~1 tablespoon for ~2 cups of berries) but it might depend on your preferences & how sweet the berries are

Cherry Compote (from frozen)

we get frozen organic sweet cherries from Costco, which are tasty

• similar to the blueberry compote, except for the following:

• start with a larger amount (~3 cups, since it cooks down)

• no added sugar required, only a bit of lemon juice

• takes longer to cook (since the frozen berries give up a lot of liquid)

Citrus Topping

...this is roughly the original Gjelina recipe

• Supreme a bunch of citrus (grapefruit, oranges, mandarins, etc)

• Cook lemon (and optionally other stuff like kumquats) slices, including the peel but with seeds removed, in 1:1 simple syrup

• serve panna cotta with some fresh citrus, some candied citrus, and some flavored syrup