Scabin and the genesis of the Cyber egg

In early July, Francesca Martinengo of Agrodolce asked me what was the most delicious dish I hade eaten in a starred restaurant. My answer was Davide Scabin’s Cyber Egg when Combal was still a trattoria at the beginning of Valsusa, on the bends above Almese, and not inside Castello di Rivoli, above Torino. It is basically a “plastic, not pasta, raviolo, something never seen or eaten before, with a filling of caviar and egg yolk. And the scalpel to make a miniscule incision and then suck everything in just one mouthful. It was like sky rocketing in just one second without expecting anything at all”.

18 years later, the cyber egg is an adult, though when going back in memory to November 1997, I realise only now that I never asked Scabin how it was born. I fixed this during his week of great cuisine and true emotions at Identità Expo: “I was in the pastry laboratory, working with a hopper full of flour, a real bore. I was wondering what I was doing there until I happened to notice a container with eggs. Eggs are perfect in all aspects, starting from the shell, a fantastic natural packaging. Nature gave them everything and this became a challenge for me. I wondered how I could improve perfection”.

Here we can mention Vujadin Boskov, the Serbian trainer of Sampdoria, Italy’s champion in 1991: “A star sees motorways where other players see paths”. Davide is the kind of person who sees motorways: “I could work on the shell only. It wasn’t a matter of inventing a new dish but a different way of conceiving an egg. Still, I couldn’t get to the bottom of it, at least not until I found a roll of cling film in my hands and an empty egg box. The problem was making an egg without being a hen. It was simple, when I understood this: I had to line the egg holder with cling film, the single whole. I poured caviar and egg yolk inside, pepper, I seasoned it, in other words, closed everything and served it. You arrived the second time I served it”.

I was told about the first one: the cyber, with a sole whole, like the one I ate, was closed in a urine plastic container, with the classic shaving blade, not today’s multiple blades – who knows where Scabin found it. It wasn’t even called Cyber egg, but Sida that is to say Aids in French. Too strong. It was abolished together with the blade, substituted by the scalpel. You then need, and still to, to make a small hole in the film and suck the filling in a second. The cyber egg needs to be finished in a mouthful.

Here is his recipe, starting from the ingredients for 4 people: 60 g caviar, 2 g scallion, 4 egg yolks, pepper to taste, vodka to taste.

Method: roll out around 50 cm of cling film and fold it so as to obtain a double layer. Place a “nest” of caviar (around 10 grams) in the middle. Add a touch of chopped scallion and a very fresh egg yolk. Grind some pepper and, with a dropper, add 5 drops of vodka. Close the casing by lifting the sides and creating a torsion in the film so as to that the side containing the egg swells and creates an air bubble. Close the "balloon" with a string.

To finish: once you have made the “balloon”, put it into a small glass with a diameter smaller than the sphere, so that the stalk is left underneath and the smoother part comes out. Get a scalpel or a pointy knife, make a whole in the film and "suck" its content.