Tangerine Tarragon Panna Cotta with Raspberry Sauce

Citrus is my favorite.  I cannot get enough of everything right now what with the blood oranges, meyer lemons, fun orange hybrids, and all of the rest.  I had a packet of gelatin leftover from the marshmallow experiment, so I decided to try my hand at a panna cotta with the beautiful tangerines I had.

Panna cotta means cooked cream.  Sorry, literalists, I did not cook my cream.  This being my first time with the dessert, I went to Bon Appetit for guidance and adapted a blood orange panna cotta.  The gelatin is bloomed in the tangerine juice, dissolved over low heat, cooled, and then the cream and some greek yogurt is added.  Oops.  Still tasted amazing!

So how did tarragon get into the mix?  To be honest, I was looking at the leaves attached to some of the tangerines and thought they looked like tarragon leaves.  No real burst of genius, just my weird brain being weird.  But can I just say, it was an amazing combination!  I love putting unexpected things in dessert and this was no exception.

To add a burst of color, I made a quick raspberry sauce to top the panna cotta.  More tangerine juice was combined with fresh raspberries, a little sugar, and more tarragon sprigs.  I strained the sauce to keep out the seeds and match the silky texture of the panna cotta.

For as impressive the final product is, there is very little active time in this recipe.  Just refrigerate for about 6 hours before serving and use a warm water bath (and a maybe a knife) to help ease the panna cotta out of the personal sized bowls.  Enjoy!

Citrus Tarragon Salmon en Papillote

Nothing is better than the first warm day of the year.  During my bike ride across DC yesterday, it made me so happy to see Dupont circle and M street full of people again.  I got out of class early to "enjoy the rest of the day" and that meant a stop at my favorite frozen yogurt shop to people watch before picking up something spring-y to cook for dinner.  I have been really good about not buying food for lunch so I thought I would splurge on a piece of salmon for dinner.  I wanted to try something different than my typical sear on both sides and throw in the oven to finish, so I picked up a roll of parchment paper to experiment with the en papillote technique.

En papillote is french for "in parchment."  Basically, you get a giant sheet of parchment paper, butter every space you think you will use, put down a layer of vegetables, top with the fish, and add a little liquid before wrapping up and baking.  A space is left in the packet to allow the fish to steam.  I chose to use what I had leftover in my fridge to line the parchment (zucchini, red bell peppers, and green beans) with a filet of salmon and paired it with a citrus, tarragon, and dijon mustard sauce.  Bright and tangy, a great spring dish.

Best part?  It cooks up in under 15 minutes and took me only the time to preheat the oven to prepare my pouch.  It was a perfect single person meal, with leftovers for lunch the next day.  Double it for an impressive date night, cut open table side.  Get creative, this is more of a technique than a recipe!