Sage

Not many recipes that I am familiar with call for sage. Here in the US it is most often used (in its dry, powdered form) to flavor stuffing. You know, the breadcrumb concoction that is used to stuff a turkey. I don’t use it for that. I use it in this fashion:

A handful of large sage leaves, freshly picked.
Vegetable oil (I often use olive oil)

Pour oil into a small frying pan to a depth of several millimeters. Heat oil. When you drop a sage leaf into the oil and it sizzles, you know it is hot enough. Dump the leaves into the oil. Fry them for about 30 seconds, flipping them once. Scoop them out of the oil onto a paper towel. Sprinkle with salt. Eat them just like that (they are delightfully crispy and have a complex, somewhat bitter flavor) or crumble them onto a salad.

Interesting thing about sage, it contains a volatile oil which is released upon cooking. It smells sort of like incense. This volatile oil contains alpha and beta thujones, which are chemicals which exert psychomimetic (mind altering) effects if ingested in substantial enough amounts. That’s why it’s important to cook whatever dish you choose to flavor with sage (in order to release these chemicals). Or not. All depends on whether you wish to have your mind altered.

Another herb that contains those same thujones is wormwood. Wormwood was used as the principal flavoring ingredient in a 136-proof alcoholic beverage called absinthe.
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