Dessert Recipe: Almond Lychee Cheese/Green Tea Panna Cotta (Vietnamese Version) - Che Khuc Bach

Photo credits to Mina Le 

Vietnamese Panna Cotta cubes in sugar syrup (also known as Che Khuc Bach - meaning white cubes in sweet soup in Vietnamese) is currently a very hot trend in Vietnam; everyone is going crazy about this amazing yet simple dish. The white cubes (panna cotta) are made with milk, heavy/whipping cream, sugar, almond extract and cheese; these cubes are kept cool in the fridge for about 5 hours before serving with sugar/lychee syrup. I made it by myself, tried it for the first time and felt in love with it right away; the texture is jelly-like (tofu-lookalike) yet chewy, the cheesy taste is just blown-away! Let's get started and make this super easy and delicious dish!

Preparation time: 30 minutes - 1 hour (+ 5 hours Panna Cotta set in the fridge) 

Ingredients:

• 4/5 Cup/200 ml of Milk (unsweetened)
• 4/5 Cup/200 ml of Heavy/Whipping cream 

*I know there's no 4/5 Cup but try using 1 Cup and don't make it too full! (The reason why I do this is because I like my panna cotta to be firm, but if you do like it soft, use 1 Cup each)*

• 1/3 Cup of Sugar (not too sweet, not too plain; about in the middle; alter to your own preference) 
• 1 pack of unflavored Gelatine 
• 1/4 Cup Cold water 
• 1 Cup of Sugar 
• 1 Ginger 
• Sliced almonds 
• 1 Canned Lychee/Longan
• 1-2 drops of almond extract (optional)
• 1-2 tablespoon of green tea matcha powder (optional)
• 2 cubes of La Vache qui Rit (The Laughing Cow) cheese (optional)

Tools:

• 1-2 plastic rectangular molds/trays/bowls/forms - whatever you can find to put your panna cotta in! 
• Waved knife/Regular knife 
• Whisk
• A small saucepan

Recipe:

1. Bloom the Gelatine

Pour in 1/4 Cup of cold water in a small bowl and sprinkle 1 envelope of Gelatine over the surface. Let it set for at least 5-10 minutes 

2. In a small small pan, add in 4/5 Cup of Milk and 4/5 Cup of Whip Cream along with 1/3 Cup of sugar. Whisk them all up over medium heat to dissolve all the sugar. DO NOT bring to a boil. You can also check out my video below: 

3. After that, mix 2 cubes of The Laughing Cow cheese with 50 ml (1/5 cup) milk in a bowl (remember to subtract the same amount of milk from the original basic for panna cotta because we don't want to use too much milk) and heat it up for about 10s in the microwave. Then, mix it up again until it's smooth and drain it in the saucepan and continue to whisk everything up. *This step is optional, but if you like the cheesy taste then do follow this step!*

If you like the green tea (matcha) flavor then do the same as step 3 by substituting 2 cubes of cheese with about 1-2 tablespoons of matcha powder. Mix it up well and drain the mixture to the saucepan and continue to whisk them thoroughly like below: 

4. But if you don't like cheese or green tea, you can just leave it as it is now and add 1-2 drops of almond extract to the mixture and whisk it up!

5. After the gelatine has bloomed, put it in the microwave for about 10s. Mix it up well and add it to the saucepan; turn off the heat and continue to whisk for about 2 more minutes.

6. Drain the mixture into the mold (Make sure that there is no lumps in the mixture of panna cotta) 

6. Let the panna cotta for at least 5 hours. The more you let it set in the fridge, the firmer it's gonna be! But not after 2-3 days, haha!

7. Meanwhile, you can prepare the sugar syrup (sweet soup) and the toasted sliced almonds. I prefer using sweet soup instead of the canned lychee's syrup because it's too sweet for me.

Heat up 2-3 Cup of water in a small saucepan along with 1 Cup of sugar over medium heat to dissolve. After that, add some striped ginger to remove the strong odor of the sugar as well as to freshen the taste of the soup. Wait until the soup is completely cool, either put it in the fridge to keep cool or leave it outside and serve with ice afterwards. 

8. In a small pan/skillet, toast the sliced almonds over medium heat until golden brown. You can either stir it constantly or shake the pan up occasionally. A lot of people prefer shaking the pan to keep the almonds in their shapes; I personally used the stirring method and I found out that it was totally fine as well!

9. Time for assembling the dish!

This is how the set panna cotta would look like: Firm yet chewy! Use a waved knife (or regular knife if you can't find waved knife) and cook the panna cotta into 1" x 1" cubes.

Put some ice to the bowl, then add some canned lychees. After that, put in about 10-15 cubes (up to you!) into the same bowl. Now, pour in the canned lychee's syrup and sweet soup we did earlier (the proportion is 1:3 - 1 lychee's syrup goes with 3 sweet soup. Finally, garnish with some toasted sliced almonds on top and you're doneeee!

Tah-dah! This is how the final product should look like... The taste is indescribably delicious and the smell is amazingly fresh!! I've tried this recipe 3 times and it never failed me! 

Happy cooking and happy eating, guys! 

Cheers! 

Cher Vo

07/24/2013