Salep Panna Cotta

Ingredients for 8 servings:

• 400 ml sweet cream
• 200 ml milk
• 40 g drink powder (Salep instant powder)
• 80 g sugar
• 2 g mastic
• 2 ½ sheets of gelatin
• some pistachios, chopped for garnish

Instructions

Working time approx. 5 minutes; Rest time approx. 3 hours; Cooking/baking time approx. 15 minutes; Total time approx. 3 hours 20 minutes

Turkish flavor variant

Place the mastic grains in the freezer for 15 minutes. Then crush them in a mortar and pestle to a fine powder. If unfrozen, the mastic resin would stick and be impossible to pulverize. Heat the milk, cream, sugar, mastic, and instant salep powder and simmer for five to ten minutes. The liquid will thicken immediately, but if the cooking time is too short, the mastic resin won’t melt and won’t distribute evenly throughout the panna cotta. Dissolve the softened gelatin in the hot, but not boiling, cream. Pour into dessert molds and let it set in the refrigerator for two to three hours. Decorate with chopped pistachios. Salep was originally obtained from an orchid root. This plant is now a protected species, and the powder obtained from it is prohibited from being imported into the EU. Chemically produced instant powder, however, imparts the original flavor and can easily be found in Turkish grocery stores. Since there are various producers, it is important to adhere to the suggested serving size for 600 milliliters!