Pandan and ginger panna cotta

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Do you remember how exciting it used to be to collect stamps in your passport? It was always fun to flick through and see all the stamps from different countries. But passports these days aren’t the same – not as many stamps are used with the new style passports that contain electronic chips. Also, rather annoyingly (at least for NZ passports) they’re only valid for five years, not ten. And doesn’t five years go by incredibly fast?

Recently my passport was due to expire and I needed to sort out a renewal. I had to get a reference for my renewal application, so off we went to visit Dany. While we were visiting, I saw that she had a copy of Indochine – a recent birthday present from her workmates.


I had a quick flick through – it’s a beautiful book and the photos are stunning. I was particularly taken with the recipe for a pandan and ginger panna cotta. So taken that I decided to make it that day. So I did!

I adapted the recipe a bit – mostly just by using coconut milk instead of cream. It was pretty easy to make – the hardest thing was grating the ginger and infusing the milk with pandan leaves. Using pandan extract instead of leaves would speed up the process considerably.

The resulting panna cotta was *quite* gingery and you know what? I like pandan but sometimes it makes me think of old socks. :p So I’m not raving about this panna cotta – possibly taking out one flavour element would make it better. I thought that pandan, ginger and coconut would be great together and, well, I won’t say I was wrong, but I wasn’t as excited by it as I thought I would be. It was possibly just a bit too gingery for my liking (and generally I like gingery things). I also think it could use a little less gelatine.

So while I didn’t love it, I’m blogging it anyway – since I already took the photos (hah!). And it could just be that it wasn’t to my taste: others may love it. If you make it, please let me know your verdict. 🙂

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Pandan and ginger panna cotta

Rating: 21

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 3 hours

Total Time: 3 hours, 30 minutes

Yield: Serves 6

Pandan and ginger panna cotta

Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons boiling water
  • 3 teaspoons gelatine powder
  • 250ml milk
  • 5 pandan leaves, roughly chopped (or you could substitute with pandan extract – maybe a teaspoon? or less?)
  • 60g ginger, peeled and grated
  • 110g sugar
  • 500ml cream (or use coconut milk like I did)

Instructions

  1. Put the boiling water in a bowl and sprinkle over the gelatine. Stir it in and set aside.
  2. Blend the milk with the pandan leaves in a food processor. Place the milk mixture in a saucepan with the ginger and heat until almost boiling. Remove from the heat and set aside for 15 minutes so the flavours can infuse.
  3. Strain the mixture into a clean pan, getting as much of the liquid from the leaves and ginger as possible.
  4. Put the pan on the heat. Add the sugar and softened gelatine. Stir and bring the mixture up to the boil so the gelatine completely dissolves. Take it off the heat and whisk in the cream (or coconut milk if using).
  5. Strain the mixture into size 150ml cups and refrigerate for 3 hours, or until completely set.
  6. Serve in the cups or turn out, if preferred.

Notes

Adapted from Indochine

https://www.offthespork.com/2012/02/pandan-and-ginger-panna-cotta/