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Sabyon Sauce
Grated rind and juice 1½ lemon 1/2 cup white wine or ¼ cup Sherry 1/3 cup sugar 2 eggs Mix lemon, wine, sugar, and yolks of eggs; stir vigorously over fire until it thickens, using a wire whisk; pour on to whites of eggs beaten stiff.
A lemon-scented sabayon, thickened over direct heat and lightened with beaten whites. It is a sauce, not a dessert in itself, meant to be spooned hot over steamed and baked puddings.
- The hinge: keep it below a simmerYolks set around 150-160F and curdle not far above that. Fannie Farmer's "over fire" assumes a practiced hand and constant whisking; a bowl over barely simmering water gives the same result with far more margin. Pull it the moment it holds a ribbon.
- The wine measureThe choice offered is between a light white wine and a smaller quantity of Sherry, the fortified wine being stronger in flavour and alcohol. As printed the Sherry quantity has lost its fraction; a quarter cup is the proportion that matches the rest of the sauce.
- LemonOne and a half lemons yields roughly 5 tablespoons of juice and a generous tablespoon of zest. Grate the zest before juicing, and take only the yellow.
- The whiskA wire whisk is specified for good reason: a spoon will not aerate the yolks, and sabayon depends on the foam as much as on the coagulating yolk. A balloon whisk in a rounded bowl is the modern equivalent.
- The whitesThey are folded in raw, warmed only by the hot base, so the sauce never reaches a temperature that would pasteurise them. Use pasteurised shell eggs if the sauce is going to anyone very young, elderly, pregnant or immune-compromised.
- Serve at onceThe foam begins to weep within a few minutes. Make it while the pudding is being turned out, and carry it to the table in a warmed jug.
- YieldRoughly 1½ to 2 cups of foamy sauce, enough for four to six servings of pudding.
"Sabyon" is an anglicised spelling of the French sabayon, itself borrowed from the Italian zabaglione, a whisked custard of egg yolk, sugar and sweet wine that is usually traced to the courts of northern Italy and was long made with Marsala. In France it is served as a dessert in its own right but also, as here, as a pouring sauce for puddings and fruit. The use of Sherry or plain white wine in place of Marsala may simply reflect what was more readily to hand in an American kitchen, and the lemon supplies much of the aromatic work the Marsala would otherwise have done.