We have a friend from church called Mr. Lincoln who has the most divine star fruit aka carambola tree. Each year without fail, as soon as they come into season, we get a huge bag full after mass. Outside of just digging in and devouring their refreshing and juicy flesh, I like to slice them to flavour water with mint, top tarts with them or as I am now sharing with you, transforming them into a compote for my dairy free coconut panna cotta.
Panna Cotta
- 3 cups unsweetened coconut milk
- ½ cup Jamaican honey
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 1 tsp vanilla paste
- 2 tbps hot water
- 1 tbsp powdered gelatin
- Star fruit compote
- 4 large star fruit, 1 sliced for garnish, 3 roughly chopped, seeds removed
- 3 Cloves
- 1 Cinnamon stick
- 1 star anise
- 2 tbsps brown sugar
- ¼ cup dark Jamaican rum
- 1 cup water
Method
- In a large saucepan add coconut milk, honey, lime juice, and vanilla paste over medium heat until just under boiling point. Remove from heat and completely cool down.
- Mix hot water and powdered gelatin together in a small bowl until dissolved and stir into the coconut mixture.
- Pour coconut mixture into ramekins, cover and place in the fridge to chill down and firm up.
- In a medium saucepan add chopped star fruit, cloves, cinnamon stick, star anise, brown sugar, rum and water together and mix well. Bring to a boil over high heat and then lower to medium and simmer for about 20 minutes or until the fruit begins to break down. Cool down and let sit for an hour.
- Discard spices from fruit and puree the fruit to a chunky texture.
- Remove ramekins from the fridge and top them with the star fruit compote.
- Garnish with the extra star fruit slices.
Jacqui ‘JuicyChef’ Sinclair, founder of Nyam & Trod, is a British Jamaican award-winning chef, writer, and food culturist. She is a co-founder of Kingston Kitchen, an annual food event supporting food artisans. Jacqui has been an advocate of the Meatless Monday Global movement in Jamaica since 2011. Jacqui’s work has been featured in such publications as the Huffington Post, the Jamaica Observer, Saveur, The Jewish Post and numerous blogs. She has appeared on the Travel Channel’s ‘Bizarre Foods’ with Andrew Zimmern and Food & Wine’s Jamaica episode with Kwame Onwuachi.