Especially for you my friend - Espresso Panna Cotta with Spiced Cherry Compote!

“A friend is, as it were, a second self” (Marcus Tullius Cicero)

I have so many things, stories, incidences running through my mind that I could write pages, but when I sat in front of my computer, fingers on the keyboard, I am thinking, how to begin and what to write. I didn't find any other appropriate quote that could define us and our friendship.

Today might be an ordinary day for the rest of the world but very special to us. It's been so many years since we last met but that hardly changes anything between us. We still manage to be each others support system, even if we sometimes talk just once in a month. We can still understand each other's silences on the phone and start from where we last left off.

I miss our good old days and all the fun, our shopping excursions, the craze for watching the movies first day-first show, trying out every new restaurant in the city and our desperate measures to collect cash to do all this. Thinking of all this is enough to brighten up my day. I hope we will be able to meet up soon and relive all these beautiful moments again. 

Today's recipe is especially for you my friend. I just cant stop laughing now and finding it really funny that we are talking recipes, who once didn't know abc of cooking. I experimented with agar-agar as I promised you, and I think the result is quite satisfying. So now it's your turn :-)

Ingredients

80 ml - sweetened condensed milk
1/3 cup - cream, around 40 % fat
1/4 cup - greek yogurt (you may also use thick hung curd)
1 espresso (approx 30 ml), cooled
1/3 cup - milk
1 tsp levelled - agar agar powder

For Cherry Compote
125 grams - cherries, washed and pitted
2 tbsp - muscovado sugar
2 small pieces of cinnamon sticks
2 pieces of star anise
1/4 cup - water

For decoration (optional)
Sorry for not providing the exact sugar measurement for the decoration but I followed this video here to make the sugar nest.

Method

1. Bring the cream to just before a boil and remove from the heat.
2. Mix the agar agar powder and the milk in a pan. Place the pan over a medium heat and stir until agar agar dissolves properly. It should not take more than a minute.
3. Mix the hot cream to the milk-agar agar mixture and mix well to get an uniform mixture. Let it cool.
4. Mix together the cooled espresso, condensed milk and the greek yogurt in a bowl and keep it aside.
5. Add the slightly warm agar agar cream mixture (if you are able to put your finger in the mixture to the count of 10) to the condensed milk-yogurt mixture and mix well. 
6. Sieve the mixture and pour into the moulds and place the moulds in the fridge to set. It will set in an hours time. 
7. For cherry compote- Place all the ingredients in a pan and cook on medium heat until the cherries are slightly soft. Remove from the heat. 
8. To remove the panna cotta from the moulds- dip each mould in hot water for 5 seconds and then carefully turn out on the serving plates. Just before serving carefully place the sugar nest on top of the panna cotta and serve it with hot cherry compote.

The panna cotta was soft, shiny, creamy and good to taste. It had a slightly grainy texture because of the yogurt. You can completely ignore the yogurt and use cream instead, if you mind the grainy texture.

Enjoy!