Sage Brown Butter

This browned butter is a classic base to so many great dishes. The addition of sage and lemon is especially nice for fall dishes. As the recipe says, adding the aromatics after the butter has browned and been removed from the heat ensures the perfect flavor balance (i.e., you don’t want to burn the sage or cook away the fresh lemon flavor). I mixed my brown butter into mashed sweet potatoes—I just baked the sweet potatoes whole in a 400°F oven for 45 minutes, removed the skins, and mashed them along with the browned butter. It was divine. I think pretty much anything would taste divine with this butter though!

As soon as I read this recipe, I was smiling thinking of my grandmother and how she would use the not-so-nice-looking herb leaves to make scented butter. And this recipe is very similar to how she used to make hers. Indeed, this is a beauty drizzled over mashed potatoes but is ever better on a nice, juicy, grilled steak. You can use sage or you can use just about any other herb. The nice thing is that you can also freeze it in small quantities, which of course will remove some of its beautiful aromas but is nevertheless very practical for last-minute butter emergencies.

Although perfect with the Chestnut Pasta Rags with Wild Mushrooms and Brussels Sprouts, this versatile butter would enhance almost anything it touched! It went great with some roasted guinea hens, but you needn’t stop there. It’d go great with a pan sauce, too. If vegetables could, they’d sing your praises were they to be caressed by this easy-to-prepare finisher.