What expands but doesn’t fill, and disappears immediately? Zabaione! I have spent far too much time this week thinking about how to riddle what may be my favourite pudding: a boozy, warm, puffed cream. Riddles that turned into terrible jokes after reading Sophia Loren’s wonderful, frisky description of how, in southern Italy, there is a custom of giving newlyweds a good stiff zabaione, “the implication being that the young bride and groom will need all the strength they can get as they put their backs into the first days of wedlock”.
I made zabaione recently, with a friend who lives in paradise, in a house surrounded by a wild garden, on the edge of Lago Maggiore. While it can be made in advance (and kept in the fridge), we agree it is best made and eaten immediately. So, after a meal of gnocchi and vitello tonnato (which I will write about one day), we stood at her stove in our socks, very Sophia Loren, and set up a double boiler and mixed yolk, sugar and fortified wine.
