Strawberry Panna cotta

Rinse the rhubarb, chop it into small pieces, and stir it with 75 g of sugar in a cul-de-poule. Leave to drain for at least 2 hours.

In the meantime, prepare the panna cotta :

Split the vanilla pod lengthwise, and with the back of a knife, scrape out the seeds.
Put them in a saucepan with the whipping cream, 60 g sugar and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally.

In a cul-de-poule, gently mix the 4 egg whites with a fork. But do not whisk them.

Prepare a bain-marie in the oven so that the verrines or ramekins can be generously dipped in it, almost completely if possible.
Preheat the oven and the bain-marie to 120 °C.

Gradually pour the infused cream over the egg whites, and not the other way round, mixing well to obtain a completely homogeneous texture.
If you want to be able to unmold the ramekins, line them with a baking plastic.
Fill the ramekins 2/3 full.
Place them in the bain-marie and cook for 30 to 35 min until they are no longer flabby.
Then take them out and put them to cool (cold water bath, then refrigerate).

When the rhubarb has infused, collect the juice in a saucepan and reduce it at ¾ . Watch out, it goes fast.
Then add the rhubarb pieces, and continue to cook over a very low heat with a lid on until the rhubarb becomes a puree when mixed.
Leave to cool.

Gently cut the strawberries into small pieces, except for 4, and mix them gently with the cooled rhubarb compote.

Put this mixture on the cooled panna cotta, and decorate with a whole strawberry on each.

This dessert might come from the Italian Piedmont ; created during the 20th century ? "Panna cotta" means "cream cooked". It is very close to the bavarois dessert.
The classic recipe: 2-3 gelatin sheets/8-10 g put in water, squeezed, added. Just recook a few seconds, mold and wait. But the egg whites bring a marvelous texture. With the yolk make a crème anglaise.
This recipe suggests a strawberry-rhubarb mix. But it can also be done with cherries, raspberries… Drinks to pair with are the same.