Recipe: Sage Leaves

This isn't so much a recipe as a recommendation to try. I grow sage in my garden, and at times it is a little overwhelming. The plant gets huge, over takes the bed, and needs to be strongly cut back. The puzzle is what to do with all that glorious smelling sage that I have culled. My answer is fried sage leaves. Butter, sage and that's it. Melt butter in a skillet, about 1/4-1/2 cup, then gently fry a few sage leaves at a time until crisp, remove from skillet to drain on paper towels, and repeat. The only trick is to keep the butter from getting too hot and burning. Ghee would probably work even better since the milk solids have been removed.

Then comes the fun part...crispy delicious sage leaves and sage infused butter. I eat more of these then is probably healthy when I make them, but they just taste so darn good. If you manage to save some, they can be used in a variety of dishes, and even frozen to use later. I like wrapping them in a chicken thigh, and then grilling the thigh. Brushing the sage butter onto the grilling chicken intensifies the flavor.

The sage infused butter can be used to impart flavor to a variety of dishes. I like to fancy up plain old pork chops with sage butter and fried sage leaves (my kids even like this). I pan cook the pork chops, browning one side in the sage butter, then turning them over and covering until done. When done, I remove the pork chops from the pan, add some chicken broth to the pan juice and then reduce the liquid. To thicken the sauce I use the sage butter. I pour the sauce over the pork chops, and sprinkle them with the fried sage leaves. Yummy!