Sage brown butter sauce

So this wonderful and simple sauce appears in a huge number of dishes that I cook, but it is worthy of its own short entry because it is so damn good! It goes great with butternut or acorn squash dishes (when the chilled air of winter comes around my squash soup will make an appearance on this blog), I found that it works on top of fish and sage and red meats (lamb) are just a match made in heaven. Add some nutty brown butter goodness and this is staple sauce to keep in mind when you are looking for good rich flavor to spruce up a dish. Plus the crispy sage is indescribably good! A true story about these wonderful little treats: I was helping a friend cook a birthday brunch and she was using a recipe that called for sage brown butter to pour over sweet potatoes. After going through the process of making the butter and pouring it over the potatoes she looked quizzically at the crispy sage and asked me if we just throw it out. After a brief moment of sadness and panic passed through I acted quickly telling her that those are little flavor bombs of pure goodness. I quickly forced her to try a piece, her reaction was instantaneous and the same as anyone who tries these small bits of wonder for the first time. They have such a strong, unique flavor, and the result is that they just make things taste better.

All you need is fresh sage leaves, butter and a good small sauce pan that reacts quickly to changes in temperature (for this I like a copper/stainless steel combo, the copper is great for controlling heat and the stainless steel finish provides a nice background to observe the changing color of the butter, a dark background makes this difficult and if you notice the change too late it is hard to save the dish. This dish is not overly tricky but it does take some timing, as it is a fine line between wonderful brown butter and astringent burnt butter. Like everything that I cook this is all about using your senses rather than relying on a timer, and understanding the progression of the butter though its stages. Making this is quick, but takes some focus.

Start with a couple of tablespoons of butter
Heat sauce pan over medium to medium low heat
Melt butter in the sauce pan
When butter is fully melted at the sage leaves
Stir the sage leaves to make sure that they are fully coated in the melted butter
Now watch the mixture, it will begin to foam up, once the foam decreases stir regularly and watch carefully as the butter starts to brown.
Once the butter starts to brown be ready to move quickly
When the butter starts to changes from a very light brow to having specks of darker brown color (this is actually hard to put into words, and I will work on trying to get picture up, but it happens really quickly) remove from the burn and continue to stir consistently. The pan should cool quick enough to keep the butter from burning while maintaining the nutty flavor that comes from the browned milk solids.

That is really all there is too the sauce. Pour over whatever you happen to be cooking and use the crispy sage as garnish or grind it up to add to another sauce (or you can just eat it right then and there).