Cremona, Romano Gobbi, and Fried Sage Sauce

While on my mission in the city of Cremona, one of our members (and a dear friend) Romano Gobbi (RIP) invited us over for dinner. One of the dishes he served was ravioli with a butter and sage sauce. This was the first time I had this sauce and I was very impressed. It’s especially good with Romano cheese instead of Parmesan. He basically told me how to make it. He told me to put the sage in and cook on low heat until “appena si arrossice il burro.” Until the butter barely browns. You don’t want to burn the butter.

Several times over the years I have tried to make this sauce again. It has never been as good as the time he made it for me. I put it down to inferior ingredients.

Then a couple of years back, when Curtis was retiring from ARB, we took him to dinner at Tuscany restaurant. One of the appetizers they served was butter fried sage leaves. They were surprisingly wonderful and tasted a lot like the sauce I remembered.

Fast forward to earlier this summer. I was clearing some brush and weeds on the hill and noticed our sage plant was doing well. I thought I should try to fry some of the leaves and see if they are as good as the restaurant. Well, they were wonderful and I realized that the sauce is the butter left behind after frying the leaves. I was always using ground or rubbed sage and just leaving it in the butter.

It’s amazing to me that it took this long to figure it out and also that long since having the fried sage leaves too.

Now we have another staple sauce that we have added to our repertoire.