In this social distancing age, I can’t have a camera crew in my home so I hope you’re OK with a lo-fi video this week! Meals don’t come simpler than this pasta with burnt butter and sage. It’s such a great dish for nothing-in-the-fridge days or for those COVID moments when the home-schooled honeys and work-from-home husband start wondering about lunch (ie. from about 10am!).
The key to making the simple sublime is to cook your butter until it’s nut brown but not burnt. Let the sage leaves crisp up in the brown butter before swirling in the almost-cooked pasta and a little pasta water to help bring the sauce together. I use tagliatelle in this video but it’s great with any pasta – try gnocchi and tortellini.
Serves: 1 or more
Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients
- 100 grams (3.5 oz) pasta per person
- 50 grams (1.8 oz) butter per person
- 5 sage leaves per person
- salt, to taste
- lemon zest, optional
- pepper, optional
Method
1. Cook pasta in plenty of heavily salted boiling water until almost cooked, ie a minute before al dente, then drain.
2. Melt butter over medium-high heat and continue to cook, swirling often, until foaming and starting to brown.
3. Add sage leaves and cook, swirling occasionally, until sage leaves are crisp.
4. Season to taste.
5. Add drained pasta with a few splashes of pasta water to burnt butter and swirl to emulsify the liquid and coat the pasta. Serve immediately, with finely grated lemon zest and freshly ground pepper, if desired.
Variations
- Add finely chopped garlic along with the sage.
- Reserve pasta water and add 1/2 to 1 cup to brown butter mixture before adding pasta. Heat and stir to emulsify, then add pasta.
- Add grated parmesan to brown butter sauce along with water, or sprinkle generously over finished dish.
More about this video
- You should try burnt butter and sage with my Gnocchi.
- I shot this video in April 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown.
