Dish: Panna Cotta With Chocolate-Cookie and Coconut Crust

Complementary flavors and textures bring diners a sweet reward at Chicago’s Bin 36

By Allison Perlik, Senior Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 3/15/2004

Reading about the top five New York City panna cotta preparations in a local magazine challenged Adrian Vasquez, pastry chef at Chicago restaurant and wine bar Bin 36, to create his own equally tempting version of the sweet, silky treat.

“I’ve done good panna cottas, but nothing on a par with what I had read about, so I tried something a little different, a little new,” says Vasquez, who typically relies on seasonal ingredients and personal inspiration to drive twice-a-season changes to his dessert menu.

The chef already had been considering the idea of pairing a smooth coffee liqueur with a simple but satisfying dose of milk chocolate. He believed the combination would work well in panna cotta when complemented by a third flavor element.

Banana was the first choice for Vasquez, who likes to find opportunities to use fruit in all his desserts, but the tasting menu already included a banana-peanut-butter tart. He chose coconut instead, using it as part of a crust to add texture rather than employing the often-used tuile cookie. Still, he knew he could not build the crust on coconut alone.

DISH: Milk chocolate-coffee liqueur panna cotta with chocolate-cookie-and-coconut crust topped with Italian meringue COMPOSITION: Pour cooled panna cotta into cooled coconut-cookie crust; top with Italian meringue and brown lightly with torch. TIMELINE—R&D THROUGH INTRODUCTION: two weeks in January 2004 MENU PRICE: $8 FOOD COST: 14%

“That would have raised the cost and been too much coconut flavor,” he says, “and graham crackers or nuts were out of the question.” Vasquez opted for chocolate sandwich cookies, a childhood favorite, to fill out the crust, which he bakes until slightly toasted and then freezes to ensure stability before pouring in the panna cotta mixture.

In trial runs, the chef ran into challenges keeping the light custard in the crust, which cracked and sent pieces floating upward. Eventually he settled on a simple solution: increasing the butter in the recipe by 50% for better cohesion.

For a final textural element, Vasquez tried topping the dish first with marshmallow and then egg whites with gelatin but was satisfied with neither. He now finishes the panna cotta à la minute with an Italian meringue, browned briefly with a torch.

“I like the mouthfeel,” Vasquez says. “It was an allusion to whipped cream on coffee.”

The final version of his inventive panna cotta landed on the menu at Bin 36’s Chicago location (a second unit is in Lincolnshire, Ill.) in late January, priced at $8 to match the rest of the dessert lineup. “The owners want the menu to be accessible and affordable,” Vasquez says.