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Sabaglione
(France.) This is an old and delicious dessert. Make a custard of the yolks of 5 eggs, 3 glasses of Frontignac or Angelica, and 3 spoonfuls of sugar. Cook slowly, in a pan of water, and pour into glasses. Serve ice-cold.
A zabaglione by way of France, thickened over water rather than direct heat. The whole dish hinges on constant whisking and water that never boils.
- Whisk without stoppingSet the bowl over water held at a bare simmer and beat continuously until the mixture has thickened and increased greatly in volume, falling from the whisk in a ribbon. Yolks left standing against a hot bowl will scramble, and once curdled the foam cannot be brought back.
- Temperature targetCooked properly this reaches about 160F, which is also the point at which the eggs are safe. A probe thermometer is more reliable than the visual cue if you are chilling the mixture rather than serving it warm.
- "3 glasses" is vagueA wine glass in period recipes is usually reckoned at about 2 fluid ounces, though larger glasses are met with, so this could mean anything from roughly 6 oz upward for five yolks. Start at the low end -- roughly 1 to 1 1/4 oz of wine per yolk -- or the custard may not thicken.
- Frontignac and AngelicaFrontignac is sweet Muscat from Frontignan in Languedoc; Angelica is a sweet fortified California wine, once common and now scarce. Dry or sweet Marsala is the standard modern stand-in, with Moscato, Madeira or a sweet sherry all workable.
- Sugar"3 spoonfuls" reads as tablespoons, about 1 1/4 oz. With a sweet fortified wine that is enough; adjust down if you use Moscato, which brings its own sugar.
- Serving ice-coldZabaglione is usually served warm and eaten at once. To hold it cold as written, whisk the pan over ice until the foam is cool and set, otherwise it collapses and weeps as it sits. A little whipped cream folded in at that stage stabilises it.
- YieldFive yolks fills four small stemmed glasses generously, or six as part of a larger dessert course.
Zabaglione is Italian in origin -- the name is generally traced to Venetian and Piedmontese dialect forms, with a long-repeated tradition attaching it to sixteenth-century Turin -- but by the nineteenth century it had been thoroughly absorbed into French cooking as sabayon, which is how this book comes to file it under France. The two named wines give a rough sense of the entry's period: Frontignan Muscat was a fashionable dessert wine in Europe, while Angelica was a sweet fortified wine made by California producers from the mission era onward and largely gone by the middle of the twentieth century. Its appearance alongside a French wine in a book of dishes collected abroad is a small record of what an American cook of the period could actually buy.