Cooking Italy: Zabaglione

      In the Cooking Italy class with Angela, we are cooking from the book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan.   This week's recipe was Zabaglione and can be found on page 598.   Fruit and a pudding-like sauce, what's not to love?

      In the book are two recipes, one for plain Zabaglione made with Marsala wine, and the other a cold version called Cold Zabaglione with Red Wine which was made with red wine and chilled.  Zabaglione is a sort of creamy pudding-like sauce usually accompanying fruit, but sometimes cake and other things.  

      I made the Marsala version as I had that on hand and I think it goes nicely with cherries, which is what I had on hand for fruit.  (Everyone here is getting ready to head out to various venues at various times for various things, so I figured I would use what I had on hand rather than going to the market to stock up on things that were just going to be sitting around in the next bit.  I'm fairly certain any Italian Mama would approve.) 

      While the red wine version produces a lovely pink color, the Marsala wine (an amber color of wine) produces a lemony color of sauce which I thought went nicely with the dark red cherries.  And, it tasted very nicely with those dark red cherries. 

      This is an easy dessert, the only tricky part being whisking egg yolks over heat for about ten minutes with the ever present fear of ending up with scrambled eggs, but I have done enough of this now with the French cooking, that the scrambled egg threat isn't so daunting anymore. 

      The chilled version can be made ahead and parked in the refrigerator for 4-6 hours, so if you are serving this at a dinner, you might opt for that, as I was making the version with the Marsala that was available for eating immediately after completion. 

      It's a tasty dish, sometimes it is nice to have just a little something with a bit of fresh fruit and this fits the bill nicely.  I will do it again, and I will try the red wine chilled version when I have a bottle of the appropriate wine on the menu next. 

      If you would like to see Angela's lovely pink rendition (she has such a way with food styling) and the recipe, you can go to Spinach Tiger where you will also find a connect to the Cooking Italy group, the schedule, and the upcoming menu recipes.

      Next week's recipe is Poached Shrimp with Olive Oil and Lemon Juice and can be found on page 65.