Panna Cotta Sandwich

If you've been reading my blog,

You'll know that I made red bean soup during Chinese New Year's Eve,

In addition,

I also made some red bean filling from it.

Because of my greediness,

I ended up with way too much red beans,

It's over-flowing my fridge.

I ought to come up with something to finish up those beans,

As a result, besides red bean soup, I also made red bean pastry shells the other day,

But it's not enough,

1..2..3..10...20...50...100....200...I have no idea how many "beans" I still have left,

So I came up with this,

Panna Cotta Sandwich-

Ingredient?

1 can of coconut milk (about 400ml)

2% skim milk

2/3 envelope of gelatin

Vanilla extract

Red bean filling

How?

First lets mix up 2/3 envelope of gelatin and about 1 tablespoon of 2% milk,

Set aside.

Have a small pot ready,

Turn to medium heat and pour in:

3/4 cup of coconut milk, gelatin/milk mixture, 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar.

Keep stirring it and bring to a boil,

Turn off the heat, set aside, don't stop stirring it.

Add about few drops of vanilla extract, only a few drops, KEEP STIRRING it,

Don't get lazy, you and switch hands, it's fine.

Pour that into a medium/large size ramekin.

Let it cool for about 1 hour, transfer to the fridge for at least 4 hours,

Preferably overnight.

For the red bean filling,

Have about 3/4 cup of red bean filling ready,

Mix it well with about 2 tablespoons of coconut milk,

Spread it over our first layer of panna cotta.

Back to the fridge,

Let's start working on our final layer of panna cotta.

For the final layer, just repeat the same steps as you're making the first layer.

If you're running short on coconut milk,

Just replace it with regular milk. No worries.

Pour the mixture on top of the red bean filling,

Let it cool and transfer to the fridge overnight.

Simply serve it with the ramekin,

I don't know if the whole thing can turn out nicely if you try to pour it onto the plate,

We've done so much work already, I don't wanna see my final product collapse in front of me,

Been there, done that! >_<.

By the way,

Happy Valentine's Day!

Talking about Valentine's Day,

You know red bean also has another name "miss bean?"

*miss here = long for, thinking about someone

Once there was a poet in China who wrote about red beans as "miss beans,"

Here it goes (written by Wang Wei 王維, a male poet)

紅豆生南國

Red beans is growing in the southern countries, from far far away,

春來發幾枝

It's sprouting when spring comes (implies opportunities and chances)

願君多採擷

Wishing you to pick more red beans (opportunities, chances, etc)

此物最相思

This is the thing that I missed the most (expressing how much the poet misses and thinks about his friend)

Interesting huh?

*Cross fingers that my English/Chinese didn't scare you away.

Cindy's Rating: 7