What’s in a Name: Zabaione, Zabaglione, or Sabayon?

Friends are great. Friends with chickens are even better. But what to do with all those eggs, besides making frittatas, quiches, meringues, and ice cream? Zabaione (also known as zabaglione, or sabayon) is a dairy-free, light custard dessert or sauce made with three simple ingredients: egg yolks, sugar, and a sweet wine. Often sweet marsala wine is used in the Italian version, but any sweet wine will do. Regardless of what you call it, they are all the same recipe; the two starting with a “Z” are Italian, and the one starting with the “S” is French.

The formula is easy to remember:  For one serving it’s one egg yolk, one tablespoon sugar, and one tablespoon sweet wine. So, it’s 1:1:1. Super easy, right?  Multiply the ingredients for how many servings you want. The only tricky part is to keep the ingredients moving in a bowl heated over simmering water until they reach 160 F (71 C). Note that if you want the alcohol to burn off, you must bring the temperature up to 173 F (78.3 C).

I prefer a firmer zabaione that sets almost like a pudding in a cup. However, a thinner version is also great used as a sauce over fruit, cake, or even as a dip for cookies. The texture depends on how long you want to whisk or beat it.

Arliano Update (Aggiornamento Arliano):

We planted two hedgerows of photinias (also known as red tip bushes) in front of our house on either side of the driveway. They’ll likely take two years to grow tall and fill out, but they are fast. They really help define the living space in the immediate area around our house and it’s a great starting point to think about further landscaping. One could spend countless hours and a fortune on landscaping, and I’d rather not, so the rest of the fields can go slightly wild and attract bees. A kind neighbor transported the shrubs in his truck from a nearby nursery and he also bore the holes using a massive drill bit, so planting was fairly easy for us.

After many fits and starts with various “characters,” we finally found a reliable person to help us with special yard projects and garden needs. It’s such a relief to have extra hands to do things like removing blackberry brambles, vines and weeds, and unwanted shrubs weaving their way in and out of our garden fence. Or, as another example, pruning the 20-foot bay leaf shrubs to a manageable, ladder-safe height so that I can trim them going forward. Good referrals are indispensable. Please send blessing his way, light some incense, or whatever you do so that he remains!

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