Coconut and Mango Panna Cotta - Ruchik Randhap (2024)

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Mango Coconut Panna Cotta is made with two of my favourite flavours which remind so much of my time spent in Mangalore. Since coconut is a staple all year round, the majestic mango made its appearance only during the summer. We ate plenty and never got tired, such is the charm of this wonderful fruit. Since my mum cooked a lot of dishes using coconut milk I love it and still continue to use it in my kitchen today. However, since I don’t make too many curries with it I decided to use this very versatile ingredient in a summery, melt-in-the mouth dessert that is just perfect for this weather.

This recipe was in the pile of recipe cuttings given to me by my brother. He used to collect the recipes like I do now and at some point realised that if this pile was just a pile, lying unutilized then it was fit to be called junk. He decided to ask me one last time before discarding it and needless to say, I welcomed this pile with open arms (bollywood style). They say one man’s junk is another man’s treasure. True in my case.

When I came across this recipe in the pile of paper cuttings I knew I wanted to try it right away. However, I wasn’t sure how agar agar looked like as I had never seen it before. Luckily I found it in Lulu supermarket but it was not in powdered form. Despite searching for it everywhere I couldn’t find what I wanted and so I decided I would go ahead with whatever I had. I chopped up the agar strands into smaller bits and proceeded with the recipe. Since the agar is extremely light (pretty much like hay) it was very hard to measure it right on my kitchen scale and perhaps I measured out too much of it. As the recipe was for plain coconut panna cotta I did just that. However, I guess the excess agar that I used made it pretty hard – something like hardened Jell-O, can’t describe it. The taste was good but the texture was a disaster. To my bad luck I had not tasted panna cotta before but my neighbour Mitchelle who is my baking buddy described it for me and I decided to give this dessert another go.

Panna cotta by the way is a dessert that originated in Italy. It is traditionally made by blending cooking cream, egg whites and honey and then baked in a bain marie (the same techqnique used to make caramel custard). However, the more popular versions use the gelatin to set the dessert to perfection and hence is a no bake method (requires only refrigeration). The use of agar agar (a kind of seaweed) makes it a perfect dessert for vegetarians or those looking to avoid gelatin.

A couple of days ago when I attempted it I decided to use up the mango that had been lying around without any takers. Coconut and mango are a match made in heaven so I was pretty excited to taste the final outcome. My good ol’ Facebook friend Caroline had once told me that the powdered form was best as it dissolved properly. This time I decided to powder the agar strands and I am glad that the final result was far better than that of my first attempt. My mixie did a pretty good job at powdering the agar and I recommend you to do the same if you are stuck with the strands and can’t find it in the powdered form.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever as it has been rightly said by some great person. This dessert turned out such a pleasing sight that I went crazy taking pictures after pictures on a Friday morning. I simply love photography. And making desserts. And eating them. And blogging about them. I know I sound like a looney, but I can’t help feeling this way and falling in love with this dessert.

As soon as I was done with the photoshoot I invited Mitchelle for a tasting session and she fell in love with it and said it was perfect. This time around the texture turned out exactly the way it should be – light, delicate and melt-in-the-mouth. The coconut flavour was mild although the mango was a tad too dominating but maybe if I had made it without the mango it would be bang on!

You should make this dessert when the mango season is still on. However, don’t limit yourself to the mango, you can make this dessert with any fruit coulis on top, make sure it isn’t too sweet though. Although I haven’t tried it, you could pair the coconut panna cotta with chocolate, kiwi or peach puree. If you do give it a try let me know how you made it and whether you liked it.

I now leave you with these pictures – I clicked a crazy number and couldn’t decide which ones to use. The last shot is my favourite though as I feel it pretty much sums up what this dessert did to my senses.

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