Ginger Sesame Sabayon

Sabayon is traditionally made by whipping eggs, sugar, salt, Marsala and white wine over a Bain Marie (a double boiler) to create an emulsion.  After my success with Hollandaise the other week, I decided I was prepared to take on the challenge of making a savoury Sabayon to go with my Miso Black Cod, so I played with the traditional ingredients a bit to come up with the below recipe.

Julia Child encourages substitution so I have decided to eliminate the Marsala (but I think I will try to add Mirin next time) and substituted Prosecco for the white wine.  I also used a little ginger juice and some sesame oil to give a subtle Asian flair to the sauce.

As with most sauces that involve the cooking of eggs, have all your ingredients in place before you start and be prepared to attend to your sauce (meaning whisk it) until it is ready.  This is not the kind of thing you start and then walk away from.  If you do, you will end up with boozy scrambled eggs.  Yuck.  Unlike a Hollandaise which took me about 20 minutes, this sauce only requires about 5 minutes of dedicated whisking, which means it can be made no problem while your fish is in the oven cooking.

Ginger-Sesame Sabayon

Tools:

1 medium sized mixing bowl
1 small to medium-sized sauce pan - your mixing bowl should just rest on top of the pan
1 wire whisk
Small prep bowls

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon ginger juice2 tablespoons butter
4 egg yolks
1/2 dry Champagne or Prosecco
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon brown sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Fill the small sauce pan with about 1`` of water and bring to a simmer over medium-heat.

Meanwhile, separate eggs, reserving whites for another use.  Place the egg yolks in a medium sized metal mixing bowl and set aside.  Pour Prosecco over top of egg yolks.  Whisk egg yolks with Prosecco until frothy (this will only take a few seconds).

Set the mixing bowl containing the egg yolks and Prosecco over the pan as the water heats.  The bowl should fit snugly on top of the pan, with only the lower part inside but not touching the water.  Continue whisking mixture constantly as the water heats up.

After about 5 minutes of whisking the Sabayon should start to thicken.  Whisk in the butter, ginger juice, sesame oil and sugar.  Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.  Depending on your taste you may wish to add a little more sugar to give a sweeter sauce.

When sauce is ready it will be about ribbon stage (meaning you can lift your whisk from the mixture and leave a trail behind it for a short time before it merges back into the mixture).  You can hold the sauce over the sauce pan off the heat until you are ready to serve.  Just be sure to constantly whisk to redistribute the heat so the sauce doesn`t stick or over-cook.