Meloncotta

I finally bought a melon baller, I don't know how I lived without it.

As a elder millennial food stylist I obviously hold a flame to the retro styling of 70s cookbooks or maybe its purely because of my parents fondness to avocado prawns. Even in the 90s as a kid it felt other worldly. Plates shaped to match. Epic.

Now 70s cookbooks wouldn’t be anything without marie rose sauce and melon balls so I’m surprised its taken me so long to purchase one. So long in fact I actually ended up splashing out on a 14 quid one from Borough Kitchen so I am truly a baller.

Once purchased the following days were filled with balled food. Starting with melon, moving onto cucumber and then avocado. Tossed in lime, sprinkled with Tajin perfect heat wave food. I ended up with a weird hole filled distorted array of fruit & vegetables in the bottom of my fridge (I’ll just add them to a smoothie, note I never drink smoothies) so I went to my cookbook collection for inspiration, the tome of a book Lateral Cooking by Niki Segnit never fails, which I think doesn’t get enough praise compared to her Flavour Thesaurus’s (Part 1 & 2) which also never fail. I also seem to never fail in mentioning them. I wanted a no cook or at least a no oven dessert that I could consume over a few days, so meloncotta became a thing, and what a thing of beauty it is.

Meloncotta

Makes 6 pannacottas

• 150g Melon (skin removed and cubed)

• 300g Double cream

• 300g Whole Milk

• 100g Caster sugar

• 3 leaves Gelatin

• 1/4 tsp sea salt

Simmer the milk, cream, sugar, salt & melon in a small saucepan on a low heat. Be gentle you want to help soften the melon & infuse the milk but you don’t want to scorch it. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Whilst this is on, add your gelatin leaves to cold water and leave to soak.

Take the melon milk mix off the heat, and blend either with a stick blender or a jug blender, make sure it isn’t too hot beforehand.

You want a silky smooth milk that is a faint colour of your melon, the colour will deepen the longer you blend. If the mix isn’t perfectly smooth you can also push it through a sieve but if you melon is ripe it should blend fine.

With the mix still slightly warm, squeeze the water from the gelatin sheets then add to the melon milk, stir until dissolved and smooth.

Pour the mix evenly into 6 ramekins, you can transfer to a jug for easier pouring. I put my ramekins on a baking sheet to make it easier to transport to the fridge. If you have bubbles forming in the mix lightly tap on the surface to knock them out.

Set in the fridge for minimum 2 hours but they will sit happily for up to 3 days making the perfect make ahead dessert.

Serve with toasted almonds & vanilla double cream.