alexandra’s kitchen: Pumpkin Panna Cotta

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Pumpkin Panna Cotta

I love when I go out to eat and am inspired by something I have ordered. It could be as simple as the herbed butter that was served with the table bread or as complicated as the Burgundy-thyme reduction sauce that smothered the short rib. Whatever it may be, the challenge of recreating is always fun. A few nights ago I met two friends for dinner at Mercato, a great BYO on the corner of Spruce and Camac. The meal was excellent--butternut squash risotto, pumpkin fettucini, striped bass with cipollini onions--but the big hit was the pumpkin panna cotta we all shared for dessert. It was light, not too sweet and paired with a delectable pumpkin seed toffee. I've fiddled with my favorite buttermilk panna cotta recipe and have created something similar. It couldn't be easier to make and I'm happy to have found one more recipe to add to my seasonal dessert repertoire. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Panna Cotta
Yield=5 martini glasses

2 tsp. gelatin (powder form)
½ cup half and half
½ cup sugar
¼ tsp. cinnamon
freshly grated nutmeg to taste
pinch of salt
1½ cups buttermilk
¾ cup canned pumpkin purée
¼ tsp. vanilla extract
1 tablespoon bourbon

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over ¼ cup water. Let stand until softened, about 5 minutes. In a saucepan heat the half and half, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and pinch of salt until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is hot but not boiling, about 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in gelatin mixture, buttermilk, pumpkin purée, vanilla and bourbon. Strain mixture into a clean bowl or, ideally, a pourable Pyrex measuring cup. Pour mixture into martini glasses or ramekins and chill until set, 3 hours. I garnished mine with some candied pecans and store-bought hazelnut pirouette cookies, which is totally unnecessary, but complements the pumpkin flavor nicely. Also, if you don’t care about presentation, it is much easier to chill the panna cotta in ramekins: the martini glasses take up a lot of room in the refrigerator and are quite unstable.

The Eggmobile

The eggmobile houses laying hens. It follows the herd of cattle, arriving to grass they've grazed on four days earlier.The hens peck at the four-day-old cow pies, eating various insects, larvae and parasites - rich sources of protein - and accomplishing a whole lot more along the way: By eating the fly larvae and parasites, they rid the land of potential pathogens and disease; by scratching through the droppings and spreading them across the grass, they enable the manure to sink into the ground and fertilize the soil; and by eating the pesky insects, they reduce the presence of one of the cows' biggest irritants.

The Barn

Joel Salatin stands in the open-sided shelter where his cows spends a portion of the winter. During the winter, the cows eat hay (dried grass accumulated throughout the growing season), and live on a bedding consisting of woodchips, sawdust and old hay to absorb the cows' excrement. When the heavy cows tread on their nitrogen-rich manure and on the carbon-rich bedding, packing it together, they allow the mixture to ferment (anaerobic composting). By adding corn to the bedding, Salatin entices his pigs to turn the bedding into compost: When the cows return to pasture in March, the pigs dig through the densely packed bedding, searching for the tasty fermented corn, aerating the pile and turning it into compost for the spring.

Corn Pudding