Cheesus Christ! This tasted like Heaven!

goldhahnsweden, 11/14/00 9:54 am

I use a lot of cheese in my cooking. Cheese, herbs and Italian twists have become a sign for our restaurant.

I had the luck of laying my hands on a real good cookbook some time ago; ”A Passion for Cheese” by Paul Gayler. He has worked at a lot of the most famous restaurants in London. He has made himself a name as a pioneer of ”Vegetarian Haute Cuisine” (also have a look at his ”Virtually Vegetarian”…brilliant book too, shortlisted for the André Simon Award!) and just after two years of The Lanesborough opening, the hotel was given the AA’s most prestigious award for cuisine and became the highest rated five-star hotel for cuisine in the UK – a tribute to Paul’s ability as its Executive Chef.

One of my Favourite Recipes in the book is ”Panna Ri-Cotta”, a real cool way of twisting a traditional recipe!

Panna ”Ri-Cotta”

Serves 4

4 (5) tablespoons milk
150 ml double cream
75 g caster sugar
Zest of ½ orange
100 ml freshly made strong coffee, preferably expresso
½ vanilla pod, split
2 gelantine leaves
2 tablespoons rum
200 g firm ricotta, sieved
sprigs of fresh mint, to decorate

For the Apricot compote

75 g caster sugar
90 ml water
juice of ½ lemon
350 g fresh apricots, stoned and sliced

Put the milk, cream, sugar and orange zest in a pan and bring to the boil. Stir in the coffee and scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod, then add the pod as well. Remove from heat and leave to cool. Meanwhile, put gelantine in a small pan, cover with cold water and leave to soak for 5 min. Heat gently until gelantine has disolved.

Take the vanilla pod out of the pan and stir in the rum, sieved ricotta and the gelantine. Strain through a fine sieve, then pour into 4 ramekins or similar moulds and chill for at least 2 hours, until set.

For the compote, put sugar, water and lemonjuice in a pan and bring slowly to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce the heat, add the sliced apricots and poach for about 5 minutes, until just tender. Remove from the heat to cool, then chill.

Turn out the coffee ricotta custards, or serve them in the ramekins if you prefer, accompanied by the apricot compote and decorate with sprigs of mint, if liked.

Keep Cooking!

Regards

Fredrik Goldhahn, Sweden
Founder of CWW
http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/chefsworldwide


Back 2 Recipes
Back 2 The ClubHouse