Brown Butter Sage Sauce

I have been wanting to make a Brown Butter Sage Sauce for quite some time now. Every time I have seen the sauce made, I find myself taken by the simplicity and elegance of it. A Brown Butter Sage sauce has the ability to highlight the ingredients inside of stuffed pasta (what a Brown Butter Sage Sauce is generally paired with), without weighing the dish down, while still adding a silky rich flavour. Presidents Choice has some amazing fresh stuffed pastas, so when I discovered 2 packages of their Veneto Pumpkin Triangoli in my fridge, I set out to make my first Brown Butter Sage sauce to accompany it!

As you can see from the above picture, it didn't go off quite as successfully as I had hoped. One of the biggest mistakes you can make with a Brown Butter Sauce, is burning the butter! It is very evident from the above picture that I did just that. I think I got the idea in my head that it just wasn't brown enough, and kept cooking it longer, which resulted in my sage leaves frying to a crisp, and my sauce full off dark burnt bits. You may be wondering why I still posted a failed recipe. Well, I don't consider this a fail! I was able to rescue my dish in the flavour department! I spooned off as much dark burnt bits from the top of my sauce as possible. Removed the crispy sage leaves, and replaced them with fresh ones. And I certainly did not mention to my family that anything had gone wrong upon serving it to them. They had no idea that this was not the proper way to prepare the sauce and fell in love with it! After I had removed most of the burnt bits, you could no longer taste anything but the silky brown butter! So no, I certainly do not consider this a fail. Just like many of you, I am still learning in the kitchen, and I definitely do mess up every now and then. What's important is to remain calm, attempt to fix any imperfections and issues, and learn for next time!

Tip: Try making this sauce with pan cooked fish. Simply cook your fish as you normally would in the pan. Remove the fish, and continue preparing the sauce. Serve the sauce on top of the fish.

Ingredients:

6 tbsp butter

8 fresh sage leaves

1 tsp fresh lemon juice

salt and pepper to season

Directions:

1. In a skillet over medium-low heat, melt the butter and drop in 4 sage leaves. Shake or stir as butter begins to cook and foam.

2. As soon as the butter begins to smell nutty and gets some colour, squeeze in the fresh lemon juice. Remove from heat and pour over pasta with remaining fresh sage leaves. If the cooked sage leaves have become too crispy, you may remove them.

3. Season with salt and pepper.