Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Eating and Drinking => Cooking, Storing and Preserving => Topic started by: lazza on July 16, 2012, 13:08
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Hi all,
The wet weather seems to have drowned out most veg inthe garden, but the herb garden is doing very well. We have a huge amount of sage growing, which I would like to tidy up, but I don't want to be throwing out perfectly good sage!
Does anyone have any ideas for using up large amounts of sage?
We use it fresh in sauces and soups, and my wife also has a recipe which uses deep fried sage leaves (they come out wonderfully crispy) but are there any good sauces or preserves or pickes that are good?
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Sage and onion stuffing? Or you can freeze the leaves or dry them.
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I grow sage mainly for home-made stuffing, which uses up large quantities of it, but I dry it for that.
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Yes I agree with the others. The easiest way to freeze it or any other herbs, is to wash it still on its stem. Shake off excess water, (or put it in salad dryer). strip the leaves off the stem, and put in polythene bag (whole leaves), freeze it, then just scrunch the bag with your hands to make the leaves crumble up.
Regards Thelma
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You can make a sage dressing but it only needs a tablespoon of herb. I occasionally add some fresh sage to my veggie smoothies to give them a different taste but it's not great. It's a shame there are so few uses for the herb since it grows so well. I think I'll dry a lot of it out to store and use in cooking and possibly try it in tea to see how it tastes.
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This is from the River Cottage preserve book and I've made it - its very nice but a little sweet so nice diluted with tonic water or lemonade.
Elixir of sage - makes 1 litre
About 1/4 carrier bag sage leaves
500ml spirits - they say eau de vie in the book, but couldn't get this so I used vodka
200g granulated sugar
Pack the leaves in a big jar and add the booze. Seal, shake and put on a sunny windowsill for 30 days, shaking the jar every so often.
After 30 days, make a sugar syrup by heating the sugar with 200ml water and heating gently until the sugar dissolves. Allow to cool.
Strain the sage leaves out of the spirits and mix it with the syrup.
Put into a sterlised bottle with a few fresh sage leaves. These are just for looks so you don't have to put them in.
I would also be tempted to try a sage pesto for serving with pork - sage and walnuts maybe ? It will be strongly flavoured but you could use just a little drizzled over a pork chop rather than eat loads on pasta.
Salt is a great preserver as well, so you could process a handful of leaves and add to sea salt - that would be lovely for sprinking on pork joints or chicken before it goes in the oven :)
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i make a nice sage tea , infuse 6 or so leaves in sone boiling water about 3/4 pint sqeeze thew juice of 2 lemons and add also 2 teaspoons of suger or honey , stir , add more suger if you like it sweet , its very refreshing cold , but dont drink alot of it in one day or yu will be on the loo .
chrissie b