Monday, October 05, 2009

Almond Jello, 1.5 Ways


Awhile ago, Alice went to a nut farm and brought back some raw almonds still in their shells. We had been talking about almond jello a few days before that, and I thought... why not an artisan version? No extracts, no syrupy fruit cocktail... basically strip away all the things that make it great. But hey, why not?



After shelling, I ground all the raw almonds up with some milk and a little water to make almond milk (which is actually vegan, but I wanted it to be creamy). Well, I made it a little too creamy and it ended up being more like a panna cotta. Even though I strained it, it was still pretty grainy -- should've used cheesecloth. I also poached some yellow nectarines in wine along with some lemon, cardamom, and nutmeg.

As expected, it didn't even come close to the original, but it everything did taste as natural as it could be. I was going to also make the traditional version since I happened to already have some cans of fruit cocktail, but for some reason I couldn't find ANY almond jello mix near my apartment. How is it possible that there are no Chinese markets past Park Presidio?? Mexican, Korean, Russian, American... no Chinese. Who would've thought. (Yes, I could've just used almond extract, but it's not the same! It needs to be from the mix!)

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