For a really long time, whenever I threw a dinner party, and my guests asked me what they could bring, I’d say the same thing — “Just yourselves and a bottle of wine!” I’d then proceed to spend the next 8 hours in the kitchen, sweating and cursing, not fully able to enjoy the meal because something had gone wrong, finally throwing my hands in the air after my guests had left declaring that was never doing that again. And then, like childbirth, I’d forget how painful the experience was and send another “dinner next Friday?” text out a month later.
It’s a complaint I hear from a lot of people who look to me as some type of home cook whisperer—that they’d love to start cooking more, but they just feel like they have no idea what they’re doing. And my advice is usually the same: All you need is a handful of good, easy recipes that taste delicious and you feel confident in making. Nobody is expecting you to do roast a chicken and make a soufflé if you’re not a seasoned chef. Nobody is expecting you to do it all.
Right around the time I started writing Sunday Sauce, I realized that I wasn’t taking my own advice. I hate to bake, and yet here I was, at most dinner parties, pulling a lemon cake out of the oven or spending days making a spread of cookies for people to pick at after dinner. I had to start taking my own advice—nobody was expecting me to do it all, and it was perfectly acceptable for me to take the easy way out. And for me, that meant asking for help.
To this day, the best dinner party I ever threw was back in December when Ben and I had my best friends Katie and Hannah, along with their respective partners, over for a Christmas lasagna. I asked Hannah and her boyfriend Zach to bring wine, since Zach works in wine distribution and is a linchpin when it comes to providing delicious vino. For Katie and Bob I assigned the task of dessert, which they pulled off with flying colors. They brought over three different types of gelato and some Fernet Branca to serve alongside it.
The meal was great for a whole host of reasons not involving the food, but everyone’s contributions made it special, and I was able to prep the lasagna well ahead of time so that I could actually enjoy my guests.
So my task has recently been to find a dessert that I can prep ahead of time that tastes incredible and is easy to make—and it turns out the answer was hiding in my grandmother’s recipes all along. Zabaglione is an ancient Italian recipe that usually involves three ingredients: egg yolks, sugar, and Marsala wine, which is a fortified dry wine. (It’s also the basis of the sauce for Chicken Marsala.) You whip it all together in a double boiler to create a kind of custard, and serve it with berries. In my experimentation, I started whipping some heavy cream to fold into the mixture, too, which isn’t traditional, but tastes amazing.
The best part? You can prep zabaglione up to three days ahead of time and store it in your fridge, leaving you with plenty of time to enjoy your guests and drink too much Fernet. It’s my version of taking the easy way out, which, for me, is one step closer to me taking my own advice.
INGREDIENTS
4 egg yolks (make sure they’re fresh!)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup dry Marsala wine*
1/2 cup heavy cream
Berries of your choice, for serving
INSTRUCTIONS
Bring a small pot with about 1/2 inch of water at the bottom to a boil.
In a heat-proof bowl, add your yolks, sugar, and wine.
Place the bowl over the water to create a double boiler, and whisk the ingredients until fluffy. The mixture will foam at first before mellowing out into a custard. Remove from heat, place the bowl on some ice, and set aside.
Meanwhile, mix your heavy cream until it heavy peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the chilled zabaglione custard until just combined.
Serve topped with berries.
NOTES
Marsala wine is a fortified wine, which means that it will stay fresh in your pantry for much longer than your typical bottle of wine. Most will start to lose their flavor after 4-6 months—plenty of time to make more zabaglione or chicken marsala. (Which, now that I have this wine, is likely going to make an appearance in an upcoming newsletter.) It’s also not that expensive, which makes it easy to keep a bottle on-hand for impromptu dinner parties.
If you’re making your zabaglione ahead of time, make sure to keep it covered in a container in the fridge.