RealGravy

Creamy Gravies and Sauces

Buttered Sage Cream Gravy

Butter browned until nutty with crisped sage leaves, then loosened with vegetable stock and double cream and finished with nutmeg, no flour anywhere.

  • Vegetarian
  • Gluten free
  • sage
  • brown butter
  • squash
  • autumn
Illustration of Buttered Sage Cream Gravy
Prep
5 min
Cook
15 min
Total
20 min
Serves
4
Difficulty
Medium

Brown butter and sage is an Italian idea and it makes a very good gravy for anything autumnal: squash, pumpkin ravioli, roast pork, a nut roast. There is no flour here, so the body comes from reducing the stock and the cream together. Watch the butter closely, because it goes from nutty to burnt in about fifteen seconds.

Ingredients

Makes about 300ml, enough for four plates

Scale

Kit

  • Light coloured frying pan
  • Slotted spoon
  • Kitchen paper

Method

  1. Use a pale coloured pan if you have one, stainless or enamel rather than black cast iron, so you can actually see the butter changing colour. Melt the butter over a medium heat.

  2. When the butter stops foaming, drop in ten of the sage leaves. They will crackle and go crisp in about thirty seconds. Lift them out with a slotted spoon onto kitchen paper and keep them for scattering over at the end.

  3. Keep watching the butter. It will foam again, the milk solids at the base will turn from pale to golden to hazelnut brown, and it will smell nutty. That is the moment. Take it off the heat immediately, because ten seconds later it is bitter and black.

  4. Put the pan back on a low heat and add the shallot and the remaining five sage leaves, finely shredded. Cook for two minutes until the shallot is soft, which also drops the butter's temperature and stops it browning further.

  5. Pour in the stock and the cider vinegar and turn the heat up. Simmer briskly for five minutes to reduce it by about a third. With no flour in this recipe, reduction is your only thickener, so let it happen properly. The vinegar goes in here rather than later for the same reason lemon does.

  6. Lower the heat right down, pour in the double cream and simmer very gently for four or five minutes until it thickens and coats a spoon. Do not be tempted to speed this up with a higher heat, as a hard boil will break it.

  7. Grate in the nutmeg, season, and crumble or scatter the crisp sage leaves over the top as you serve.

Tips worth knowing

  • Brown butter has a window of about fifteen seconds. If in doubt, pull it off early, since pale nutty butter is fine and burnt butter has to be thrown away.
  • Dry the sage leaves properly before they go into hot butter. Wet leaves spit violently and go limp rather than crisp.
  • With no flour to stabilise it, this sauce relies entirely on double cream and gentle heat. Single cream or creme fraiche will split here almost immediately.
  • Crisp sage leaves go soft the moment they touch liquid, so keep them out until the plate is in front of you.

Change it up

  • Add 25g of grated Parmesan off the heat at the end and toss the sauce through gnocchi, though note that traditional Parmesan is not vegetarian.
  • Stir 100g of roasted butternut squash into the sauce and blitz it smooth for a thicker gravy to serve with pork.
  • Add a tablespoon of toasted chopped hazelnuts at the end for crunch, which suits a nut roast particularly well.

Keeping and reheating

Keeps two days in the fridge. The brown butter flavour dulls a little overnight. Reheat over a very low heat, stirring, and crisp fresh sage leaves to scatter over rather than reusing the old ones. Freezing is not recommended.

Questions people ask

How do you know when butter is browned enough?

Look at the milk solids at the base of the pan and use your nose. When the specks turn the colour of a hazelnut and the butter smells nutty rather than milky, it is done. Take it off the heat straight away, as it carries on cooking in the hot pan.

Can I use dried sage in this sauce?

You can, but you lose the crisp leaves that make it interesting. Use a teaspoon of dried sage added with the shallot, and expect a more medicinal, less sweet flavour. Fresh sage is worth buying for this one.

What can I serve brown butter sage sauce with?

Pumpkin or squash ravioli and gnocchi are the traditional partners. It is also very good over roast pork, over a nut roast, poured onto roasted squash wedges, and with turkey at Christmas.