This is something my mother used to make us for breakfast when we were kids. She called it zabaglione, although I believe to most people that refers to a light custard dessert, similar to sabayon. What my mom called zabaglione was perfect for breakfastime and simply involved an egg yolk beaten with sugar and mixed with equal parts hot milk and coffee. Looking back on it now, I see that it was a great way to occupy annoying children because if you wanted a cup of zabaglione, you were responsible for laboriously beating that egg yolk into the sugar until your wrist hurt and it turned a pale yellow that was acceptable to Her Excellency Giovanna, Head of Kitchen, Duce of Dissertations and Founder of Three Kids.You'll need 1 egg yolk per zabaglione so begin by separating as many eggs as people that will be enjoying this.
Beat each egg yolk with at least 3 heaping teaspoons of sugar. This is sort of to taste so add more/less as you like. 
This is the part that really works well as child sedative. My mom would just keep telling us to beat it more, no matter how long we'd been at it. Genius.
It's clearly an important step though. Eventually the egg and sugar will completely combine, making a light yellow paste. You should be able to see the difference in color--the one on the left is unbeaten, compared with the one on the right:
Meanwhile, steam some milk until foamy and hot (but don't let it scald).
Pour the hot milk and coffee into your egg-sugar mixture as if you are making a cafe au lait. 
Stir well once and enjoy a leisurely morning.
2 comments:
One of my favorite things when visiting jo and tom.
I hope you use pasteurized eggs (though I realize your mom probably didn't and you're obviously here to tell about it). :-)
Post a Comment