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Cooking Catch-up: Brown Butter Sage Sauce
Nov. 30th, 2020 12:24 pmThe weekend before last I made butternut squash ravioli. It was something I had sitting in the fridge for a few weeks after buying it on a whim at Costco. "Wait, if this is about butternut squash ravioli, why is the title brown butter sage sauce?" you might ask. Ah, that's because making the ravioli barely counts as cooking. For the ravioli we just opened the package and dumped the pieces into boiling water. The cooking was the sauce to go with it!
Hawk and I went back and forth a bit on what sauce to make. My first idea was a Gorgonzola cream sauce. That's an awesome combo with sweet ravioli that a local restaurant used to make. But Hawk doesn't like Gorgonzola cheese. She's at best "meh" on cream sauces in general, so my fallback idea of my heart-stopping Alfredo sauce (heart-stopping because it's so thick it'll clog the drain in your dish washer; just imagine what that does to your arteries!) wasn't appetizing her. My third idea rang the dinner bell, though: brown butter sage sauce.
Brown butter sage sauce was light enough to appeal to Hawk and savory enough in flavor to appeal to me. The only challenge was I'd never made it before. But that's a fun challenge to take on!
![Butternut squash ravioli with brown butter sage sauce [Nov 2020]](https://canyonwalker.dreamwidth.org/file/7331.jpg "Butternut squash ravioli with brown butter sage sauce [Nov 2020]")
As the picture above shows, the result turned out extremely well. Brown butter sage sauce is not terribly difficult to make. The main technique to master is how to brown the butter. You've got to heat it enough to separate out the solids and start toasting them, which gives it its lovely brown color and characteristic taste, but not overheat it to the point that the separated liquid part burns and gets nasty.
Another bit of technique was finding the right combination of seasonings. Most recipes call for fresh sage. We didn't have any and didn't want to make a separate run out to the grocery store to buy. We had plenty of powdered sage in our spice rack, though. I used a few shakes of that and then sprinkled in some dried basil leaves to give it more of the look and texture of having fresh herbs, plus add an extra dimension of flavor.
Atop it all I grated some fresh Parmesan cheese— well, on my portion anyway. Hawk doesn't like dry, salty cheeses. That topped it off deliciously. BTW, if you buy "Parmesan" cheese in shaker on the supermarket shelves, stop. That stuff's most likely fake. Do yourself a favor and buy a block of the real deal, and grate it yourself, fresh. I've bought a few blocks of Parmesan-Reggiano at Costco and they're well worth the money for how much better they taste than the supermarket stuff.
Bottom line? Hawk and I were split on the ravioli— I liked it while she was "meh"— but we're both thumbs-up on the brown butter sage sauce. 👍🏻👍🏼 We'll have to make it again soon for another dish.
Hawk and I went back and forth a bit on what sauce to make. My first idea was a Gorgonzola cream sauce. That's an awesome combo with sweet ravioli that a local restaurant used to make. But Hawk doesn't like Gorgonzola cheese. She's at best "meh" on cream sauces in general, so my fallback idea of my heart-stopping Alfredo sauce (heart-stopping because it's so thick it'll clog the drain in your dish washer; just imagine what that does to your arteries!) wasn't appetizing her. My third idea rang the dinner bell, though: brown butter sage sauce.
Brown butter sage sauce was light enough to appeal to Hawk and savory enough in flavor to appeal to me. The only challenge was I'd never made it before. But that's a fun challenge to take on!
As the picture above shows, the result turned out extremely well. Brown butter sage sauce is not terribly difficult to make. The main technique to master is how to brown the butter. You've got to heat it enough to separate out the solids and start toasting them, which gives it its lovely brown color and characteristic taste, but not overheat it to the point that the separated liquid part burns and gets nasty.
Another bit of technique was finding the right combination of seasonings. Most recipes call for fresh sage. We didn't have any and didn't want to make a separate run out to the grocery store to buy. We had plenty of powdered sage in our spice rack, though. I used a few shakes of that and then sprinkled in some dried basil leaves to give it more of the look and texture of having fresh herbs, plus add an extra dimension of flavor.
Atop it all I grated some fresh Parmesan cheese— well, on my portion anyway. Hawk doesn't like dry, salty cheeses. That topped it off deliciously. BTW, if you buy "Parmesan" cheese in shaker on the supermarket shelves, stop. That stuff's most likely fake. Do yourself a favor and buy a block of the real deal, and grate it yourself, fresh. I've bought a few blocks of Parmesan-Reggiano at Costco and they're well worth the money for how much better they taste than the supermarket stuff.
Bottom line? Hawk and I were split on the ravioli— I liked it while she was "meh"— but we're both thumbs-up on the brown butter sage sauce. 👍🏻👍🏼 We'll have to make it again soon for another dish.
