Ginestrata

A thin egg-yolk soup with marsala, whisked over heat and never allowed to boil.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains chicken broth.

Ingredients

• 6 egg yolks
• 600 ml light chicken broth
• 100 ml marsala
• 40 g butter
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon caster sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Method

1. Whisk the yolks with the marsala and a ladle of COLD broth until smooth. Cold, not warm — this is the step where warm broth would start to cook them.
2. Whisk in the rest of the broth, the sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
3. Put the pan over the LOWEST heat and whisk continuously for 8 to 10 minutes. It will thicken very slightly, to about the consistency of single cream.
4. IT MUST NOT BOIL, AND BARELY EVEN SIMMER. Six yolks in six hundred millilitres of liquid is a custard thin enough to drink, and the margin between thickened and scrambled is about five degrees. If you see steam rising hard, lift the pan off and keep whisking.
5. Whisk the butter in off the heat, a piece at a time.
6. Serve at once in warmed cups, with a little more cinnamon grated over.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes