November 1, 2017 - 9:54am
Fresh Sage - do you just use the leaves?
I've been making 4 cheese and spinach ravioli and lemon/sage butter to dunk it in - it's delicious! But I am curious when using fresh sage, am I being wasteful (it's expensive - I should grow it I guess) to just chop up the leaves? In the picture below, I have been plucking the leaves off and tossing the stems - should I be chopping up this whole bundle?
Share
... says "place butter in a saucepan large enough to hold the cooked pasta; turn heat to medium, and add sage. Cook until butter turns nut-brown and sage shrivels, then turn heat to a minimum", this with 30g butter and 30 fresh sage leaves to feed four. Delicious!
Yes, that's how I do it. I'm just not sure if I should be chopping up the rest of the sage I pictured or not. I only chop up the leaves and throw away the rest. It is absolutely delicious. It's good with dried sage too ... it's just when using the fresh sage that I am confused how much of the plant I can use.
I'm not sure why this is, but I really don't like to measure ingredients. I make this ravioli about once a week or every other and I don't measure anything.
A few pulses in the Cuisinart and I've got a nice, green filling all ready - scoop it into a bowl and set in the fridge to chill (makes it easier to spoon into the ravioli pasta.
For the pasta I mix some Semolina and AP flour and an egg (about a cup to one egg) pulsed in the Cuisinart and I've got my dough (more or less flour or more or less egg or add water to get the moisture level needed - should be very dry and just barely able to mold into a dough) Let it rest for 30 minutes or an hour.
I use an Atlas roller to make the pasta sheets and a ravioli tray that makes 12 medium raviolis at a time - I use an empty wine bottle as my rolling pin to press/cut the raviolis on the tray (a wooden rolling pin just doesn't seem to cut the edges properly for me).
I set them on a bamboo mat to dry a bit while I make the next 12. I also keep putting the filling back in the fridge between each batch of 12 while I'm rolling out the next pasta sheets. The filling is much easier to spoon onto the pasta when it's chilled.
While I'm getting some water boiling, I squeeze some lemon juice into a skillet with a little olive oil and butter (more butter than oil) and finely chopped sage. I heat it enough to just start to brown and try to time it so it's just starting to brown a little right as the raviolis are coming out of the boiling water. Fresh ravioli only needs 90-120 seconds in the boiling water and then a quick drain and into the hot sage butter and toss it to coat both sides of raviolis with sage butter.
I grate Pecorino Romano (or Parmesan if you prefer) on the hot raviolis while still in the skillet ... then onto my plate and grate more Romano. And a glass of Sauv Blanc goes perfectly with it.
This is a stock photo of a ravioli tray in case you aren't familiar with what they are. I forgot to take a picture of my tray when I was making them. Note the wooden rolling pin - I have much better luck using a wine bottle as my rolling pin.
When I use sage fresh from my garden (in my Sage & Onion Levain), I chop up just the leaves. I never really though of trying to use the stems too. Hmmm, needs some research...
... in a (well floured) tray, I invert the tray and remove the ravioli parcels in single sheets for freezing. This makes separating them like postage stamps much easier than that which I see in the picture you have posted.
Related question: I am looking for a pasta recipe appropriate for use on my Kenwood pasta extruder attachment; can anyone assist? My several attempts to date have not been too successful :-(
I usually use an extruder and have used one for 40 years, but I'm not familiar with the Kenwood. With an extruder, you need dough to be dry enough that it doesn't all stick together into a doughball. It needs to be small bits of dough rather than a big glob of dough. One good trick is once the flour and egg/water is mixed, let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour to absorb the liquid and then knead it again. Another really great trick for the extruder (the home ones don't mix/separate the dough as well as a commercial one) is to transfer the dough into a Cuisinart and pulse several times with the blade - this breaks the dough up into a granular state (should look like wet sand) and then back into the extruder and now it will feed through the auger much better.
I really like semolina flour for pasta - and I'll mix it half and half AP flour and Semolina or I've done it all Semolina with good luck and all AP with good luck. For my tastes, I prefer at least half semolina. DON'T SALT IT (use salt in the water when you boil it - but don't put salt in the dough). I also don't add oil to the dough, just flour and egg and maybe a little water if it's too dry. I do rub the auger and the die with olive oil though.
I made a video for my daughter in law to show her how to use her machine - it's poorly made video but here is a link set to the time in the video where I am showing the wetness/dryness of the pasta in the machine. Hope it's helpful:
https://youtu.be/yd52hmu0ETc?t=154
I had been using dried sage from a bottle and decided to try fresh - it was rather expensive to buy, so that's the only reason I wondered if I was being wasteful by throwing away all the stems.
I'll have to start an herb garden - but my garden space is currently overrun with wild blackberry bushes that I've been having a devil of a time trying to kill off. Delicious berries but very sharp thorns and hard to kill.
is to bite into them raw. Not only can you check to see if too much of the camphor flavours have accumulated but you can test for stem tenderness. I would not cut up and use any woody or tough stems.
I was out picking fresh sage this afternoon and pinched off any lower yellow, dried or discoloured leaves then decided to keep any large leaves (no stems) and kept all the tips (4 to 6 leaves.) Bite the ends and see if you find them tough. Mine still remind me of forrest berry mix in aroma and flavour.
Sage grows well in window boxes, a nice little bush with lovely purple flowers. I just cut mine back. They usually do well in one spot for about 5 to 6 years and then should be moved to another spot or have the dirt changed. Mine is about that old and is rather woody so I cut it way back to encourage new growth. It grows well next to chives. Sunny location.