Clary sage ✦

Sauge sclarée

What it is

German still calls it Muskatellersalbei, muscatel sage, after the sixteenth-century merchants who dosed cheap Rhine wine with it and sold the result as muscat. The English name comes from a different trade: clarus, clear-eye, for the mucilaginous seed once dropped into an eye to lift out a piece of grit.

In the kitchen

Infuse it warm and briefly — twenty minutes in cream held at 70°C, then strain. Boiled, the muscat note turns to sweat; for beignets, take the young leaves before the flower spike rises.

Goes with

Cream Honey Apricot Butter Elderflower Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise

Same species

Chia seed Rosemary Sage

In season alongside

Angelica Cantaloupe melon Hyssop Jasmine sambac Lavender flowers Lavender honey

Something wrong here, or missing? Tell us