Throwback Thursday: Panna cotta, the ‘cooked cream’ of cold puddings

If a grown-up hankers after a cold dessert to remind them of the jelly of their youth, but spruced up for the adult palate, panna cotta is the logical answer. It has that set jelly wobble, but it is creamy too, and with few exceptions has a subtler flavour than the fruity jellies of childhood.

“Look at that wobble” has become the near-comical cliché uttered by almost anyone who is presented with a panna cotta and has immediately given the plate a little shake. Never mind that it’s the eating that literally is the proof of the pudding. It needs to be dreamily smooth, with no grainy texture whatsoever. I don’t know about you, but that little shake and tired old remark has me rolling my eyes. Anyway.

Many sources cite “a Hungarian lady” from a village in the Langhe area of Piedmont in the early 1800s as the first to have made a panna cotta, though the lack of a name casts this in doubt. But Piedmontese do list it as a traditional dish of the region, so there must be fair evidence for this.

It reached fame in the 1960s when chef Ettore Songia put it on the menu of his i tre citroni restaurant in Cuneo, Piedmont. It is sometimes compared with various other European cold puddings, such as the French blancmange and Bavarian cream.

It has been likened to latte inglese (English milk), although there is egg yolk in that and not in panna cotta, which comprises only cream (and often milk), sugar and gelatin, with an additional flavourant. The last could be vanilla, or chocolate, or coffee, or a liquor such as rum or marsala. Because there is no egg in panna cotta, it is not a custard.

I decided that there was nothing to stop me from making pink gin panna cotta, having been sent a bottle of Musgrave rose-water-infused pink gin, which sat on the liquor cabinet for some weeks while I puzzled about what to do with it; it’s not something I drink, and anyway, the point for me is to cook with such ingredients that occasionally come my way.

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