Strawberries in Balsamic Syrup with Zabaglione and Meringue
The gardens are very early this year where I live, so the second flush of strawberries is already starting. During the June harvest we made strawberry shortcake and strawberry jam, which are annual religious rituals for me, so now we are free to try other recipes. I wanted to make something really special with this set of berries, because the second harvest is not as big as the first, and I wanted every berry to count for double. That’s when I remembered this sophisticated, not-too-sweet dessert recipe, Strawberries in Balsamic Syrup with Zabaglione and Meringue, which I clipped out of the New York Times many years ago, really adored, and for some reason haven’t made since.
It takes a few hours to make, but it’s not difficult. The eggs need to be at room temperature, so ifyou’re making it for a stunning finale to brunch, take them out of the fridge the night before. The balsamic vinegar is the most interesting ingredient—the original recipe calls for the kind that is at least 12 years old, but we don’t keep that around. What we do keep around is DeLallo’s Private Stock Balsamic Vinegar, which is aged in different kinds of wooden barrels for three years, making it delicious and complex. And it did exactly what I was hoping for in this recipe. What was I hoping for? I’ll tell you in a minute, after we make the meringue.
The meringue is the first place you use the vinegar. It’s just a teaspoon, but it’s enough to give the fluffy stuff a nice tinge of color and a little spark of flavor, along with the confectioner’s sugar and vanilla extract. It really offsets the sweetness of the sugar. So you beat the meringue up into pretty stiff peaks and spread it on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet, and then into the oven it goes, and here is where things get time-consuming. It bakes at a low temperature for two hours, and it cools in the oven for another hour. Those of us that don’t roast turkeys cannot imagine how it could take anything this long to cook! But it does, and it is so worth it.
So as your airy friend is browning away in the tanning bed, you can hull the strawberries and cut out the squishy bits. Cut any larger berries up pretty small (I think half-inch bits are perfect) and mix them with the sugar and the rest of the balsamic vinegar. Here’s where I thought the real balsamic magic might happen—and it did. Of course, the sugar and the berries make syrup. But because of the vinegar, this syrup is a mysterious, mahogany red, thick and beautiful. It looks amazing. But set the berries aside on the counter. We’re not going to taste them yet, because we have to make the zabaglione.
The yolks formerly belonging to the five egg whites that went into the meringue are now going to become your custard. We use eggs from our own chickens, who spend a lot of time in the orchard, eating bugs, so the yolks are very bright yellow, verging on orange. That means our zabaglione is very yellow too. The color contrast in the final dish is nice, so if your usual eggs are kind of pale, this might be the time to seek out your local farmers market.
You make the zabaglione in a double boiler (or in my case, a big bowl over a dutch oven of simmering water), and as you are whisking away, you add 1/3 cup of champagne, Prosecco or, as I used this time, Cavas. I was starting to feel indignant about a recipe that calls for a practically homeopathic amount of a substance that cannot be re-sealed, but then I realized that the perfect thing to drink with this dessert was champagne, Prosecco or Cavas—wastefulness problem solved. Be sure to pick something dry, though, because although you could get away with a sweet sparkling wine in the custard, this dessert is rich with a capital RUH, so you’ll want to drink something with it that is nice and light and capable of clearing your palate.
So. You’re whisking away at the zabaglione, and you do need to whisk constantly for the ten minutes or so, or risk gross and unhideable lumps in your custard. But it’s OK, because you’re standing with your head over a bowl of gently heating eggs, Cavas and sugar, and the smell is something you can live with. The recipe says the custard is done when the whisk leaves a trace in the bottom of the bowl. This concerned me. What constitutes a trace? A trace of what? Fortunately, the “trace” moment was perfectly obvious. The zabaglione parted and stayed parted, and the bowl went right into the waiting ice water to cool. Whisk, whisk. All cool and done.
It takes about as long to whip the cream as it takes for the custard to cool. Fold them together, and pop them in the fridge until the meringue gets around to joining the land of the living, and/or dinner is over.
Just before show time, you spoon the strawberries and their amazing syrup into four wide-mouth glasses, such as brandy snifters or red wine bubbles, or simply dessert bowls. Then you gently break off some pieces of meringue (don’t crush the bubbles out of them—they’re like super delicate shipping peanuts, only, you know, with incredible flavor), set it on top of the berries, then add a generous dollop of zabaglione. Top the glasses or bowls with your four most dramatic pieces of broken meringue. Think ancient ruined monuments. The glory of lost civilizations. Contemporary outdoor sculpture. That’s the idea.
Now we can finally taste the strawberries. Yes! They were worth waiting for. The tangy syrup perfectly balances the sweet complexity of the berries, and after you swallow, the balsamic vinegar hangs around the back of your throat, humming a happy tune. The zabaglione is as rich and creamy as hoped, and the Cavas flavor survives, so the custard is not just sweet but interesting. The meringue bits are crunchy and toasty and yet also literally melt in your mouth, and somehow the toastiness ties back to the mysterious quality of the balsamic strawberries. The meringue pieces make great spoons for scooping up custard and strawberries!
You could easily be cooking your meal in between the steps here, so although you have to camp out in the kitchen, this recipe is still do-able and worth doing. If you’re pressed for time the day of the meal, you could make the meringue and zabaglione the day before.
Strawberries in Balsamic Syrup with Zabaglione and Meringue would be equally right at a bridal shower, a summer brunch or the kind of patio dinner that ends with everyone lying back in their chairs, making small noises of contentment. If you’re doubling this recipe for a bigger crowd, you don’t need to double the meringue. The original batch makes extra, which, if you’re only serving 4, provides a couple day’s worth of extremely addictive nibbles.
RECIPE: Strawberries in Balsamic Syrup with Zabaglione and Meringue
