pedro ximenez “zabaglione”

this weekend is a crazy one – friends for supper tonight and more (but different) friends for lunch tomorrow. in order to make life simple i’ve decided to have completely different menus for both meals and have chosen to do three courses for each. silly, silly me.

still, it means i have had a very lovely day in the kitchen and have made all sorts of things. first to be completed was this pedro ximenez “zabaglione.” the px is completely inauthentic, being spanish rather than italian but i am on a mission to use up the bottle of px which we opened last week and which is too sweet and raisiny on its own for me. in this recipe it is “balanced” with whisky and brandy!

the recipe is an angela hartnett one which i chose because it requires the zabaglione to be made in advance and refrigerated rather than whipped up at the end of your meal. hopefully it’ll be lovely – the bowl-licking i did after making makes me think it will be.

angela hartnett’s zabaglione (serves 6-8)

12 amaretti biscuits

10 egg yolks

250g caster sugar

200ml sweet desert wine (i used px, marsala is traditional)

50ml whisky

50ml brandy

put the amaretti in a bowl and crush with the end of a rolling pin. take 6-8 serving glasses and line the bottom with the crushed biscuits. set aside

bring a pan of water to the boil – it should be big enough to sit a large bowl on top without the base of the bowl touching the water. place the egg yolks and sugar in the large bowl and whisk together with an electric whisk until pale and thick. add the wine, whisky and brandy and whisk again.

place the bowl over the pan of boiling water and whisk. the eggs will gradually become verythick and creamy – about 5-8 minutes. once the whisk leaves an indentation in the surface of the mixture it is ready.*

pour the mixture into the glasses and leave to set in the fridge overnight.

* i didn’t really know what this meant so went to the ribbon stage (move a spoon through the mixtures and its trail will stay visible for a little while). it took me more than 5-8 minutes to reach this stage.