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Zabajone, Iced
Mix the yolks of ten eggs, two dessert-spoonfuls of castor sugar, and three wine-glassfuls of Marsala wine. Add half a stick of vanilla, a small bit of whole cinnamon, and the peel of half a lemon cut into strips. Whip this up lightly over a slow fire until it is nearly boiling and slightly frothy. Then remove it, take out the cinnamon, vanilla, and lemon-peel, and whip up the rest for a minute or two away from the fire. Add a table-spoonful of maraschino and one of rum, also a small quantity of dissolved isinglass. Stir up the whole, pour it into a silver souffle-dish, and put it on ice. Serve with spongecakes or ice wafers.
A cooked wine custard set lightly with isinglass and chilled rather than frozen — closer to a cold sabayon cream than to an ice. The whole thing turns on heat control.
- The hinge: never let it boilTen yolks with no starch will scramble somewhere just above 180F, and "nearly boiling" over a direct flame is a narrow target. Work in a bowl over barely simmering water, whisk without pause, and pull it off when it thickens enough to coat the whisk and hold a ribbon.
- Wine-glassfulsA Victorian wine-glass is about 2 fl oz, so three is roughly 3/4 cup of Marsala. Use a dry or semi-dry Marsala Superiore; the cream-style bottlings sold for cooking will push it sugary.
- Dessert-spoonful and castor sugarA dessert-spoon is 2 teaspoons, so two of them is a scant 1 1/2 tablespoons — restrained, because the Marsala and maraschino carry sweetness. Castor sugar is superfine; ordinary granulated dissolves well enough in a warm custard.
- IsinglassIsinglass is collagen from fish swim bladders, sturgeon traditionally, essentially an early gelatin; it is now hard to find for kitchen use, though brewing and winemaking suppliers still stock it. Powdered gelatin does the same job, but the original quantity is given only as "a small quantity" — enough for the barest set, not a jelly — so err very low and test a spoonful on a cold saucer.
- Vanilla and cinnamonHalf a vanilla pod split lengthwise and a short piece of cassia or true cinnamon bark, both fished out before the second whipping. Extract added off the heat is an acceptable substitute for the pod; ground cinnamon is not, as it will cloud the cream.
- "Put it on ice"This means chilled hard, not churned or frozen. The refrigerator does it; give it three to four hours for the isinglass to take hold. A metal dish still chills fastest, silver or otherwise.
- YieldTen yolks and 3/4 cup of fortified wine make enough for six to eight small servings — it is rich, and the sponge fingers or wafers are part of the portion, not a garnish.
Zabaglione is Italian, generally traced to the courts and kitchens of the north — Piedmont and Lombardy claim it most loudly — and the name is often linked to a dialect word for a frothy drink; the story attaching it to a friar named Pasquale (Pascual) Baylon is traditional rather than documented. In its everyday form it is nothing but yolks, sugar and Marsala beaten warm and eaten at once, foaming, from a glass. What Cassell's gives here is a dining-room version: the same base enriched with maraschino and rum, perfumed with vanilla, cinnamon and lemon peel, stabilised with isinglass so it will hold its shape, and served cold with dry biscuits. The isinglass is the tell of the period — it belongs to a time before commercial powdered gelatin was universal, when sturgeon isinglass was what a cook reached for to make this sort of barely-set cream.