Shack Life Quarterly

Panna Cotta with Raspberry and Blueberry Coulis

For the panna cotta
300ml double cream
300ml milk
60g caster sugar
1 vanilla pod
2g agar agar

For the coulis
200g blueberries
200g raspberries
50g sugar
1 cinnamon stick
40ml water

Preparation – Panna Cotta

1. Slice the vanilla bean in half lengthways and scrape out the seeds. You could probably substitute vanilla essence for the seeds.

2. Put the vanilla seeds, double cream, milk, sugar and agar agar in a pan and warm on a medium heat until the mixture is hot. Simmer for 5 minutes – do not let the mixture boil. You can tell when it’s boiling because of a) the bubbles and b) the noise, which sounds like a kettle.

3. Remove the pan from the heat, leave to cool for 5 minutes and then divide the mixture between 4 ramekins. Remember to leave enough room for the coulis! Leave to cool for a further 5 minutes and then put in the fridge for at least a few hours.

Preparation – Raspberry and Blueberry Coulis

1. Find a pan with a lid.

2. Put the blueberries, sugar, cinnamon stick and water in the pan and cook on a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved.

3. Reduce the heat to low, put the lid on the pan and simmer for 3-4 minutes.

4. Remove the lid, turn the heat back up to medium and cook for a further 4-5 minutes. At this point you should have something that looks like a sauce and the berries should have collapsed slightly. If it is very thin you might want to leave it for longer until it thickens up.

5. Remove from the heat, retrieve and discard the cinnamon stick, add the raspberries and stir well.

6. Transfer the mixture to a suitable bowl or dish, leave to cool for 5 minutes and then put it in the fridge next to your panna cottas.

Serving

Simply retrieve everything from the fridge and spoon the coulis on top of the panna cottas.

Nutritional information: if you care, you should not be making this dish