Sure, when they’re bunched they look like some wacky offspring of an octopus and … a Martian? Tuck them (with some skillful maneuvering) into a mason jar and they make a striking centerpiece. And I was half tempted to wear some as jewelry at our wedding a few years ago! But behind their whimsical exterior lies a seriously delicious vegetable. We’re talking about garlic scapes.
We’re pretty garlic crazy around here. Rare is the evening that doesn’t begin with mincing a few cloves of garlic and tossing it into the cast iron skillet. We hope the same will be true for you this summer too. We grow a variety called Music, with beautiful purpley-white cloves and strong perfect flavor.
Sadly, we didn’t offer it last year. We plant our garlic in the fall, and in the fall of 2008 we were still farming full-time on rented land in Northern Virginia, and we just weren’t able to get away long enough to plant garlic down here at Frog Bottom. But we’re settled here now and we hope neither you nor we will ever have to go without garlic again!
While there are hundreds of garlic varieties, all of them are either softneck or hardneck. Garlic from the grocery store is almost always softneck. The cloves are small and grow in concentric circles. Most softneck varieties have excellent shelf life, which makes life much easier for produce department managers. But we think hardneck varieties just cannot be beat for flavor, and the kind we grow keeps quite well.
Hardneck garlic has one layer of large cloves which grow around a tough central stalk. This stalk sends up a flower shoot in the spring: the scape! We pluck these right off so the plant continues to put its energy into developing a large bulb. And then we head right to the kitchen.
Garlic scapes have a pretty strong garlic flavor and can be used in any recipe that calls for garlic. Chop or mince them and throw them in a skillet with some olive oil or butter. Cook until they begin to soften, and then add more vegetables and cook until the vegetables are tender — perhaps diced beets or roughly chopped chard from this week’s share??
Scapes are delicious in egg dishes like scrambled eggs and frittata. Or try mixing sautéed scapes into ground beef or other ground meat for burgers or meatloaf. They’re also great in stir-fry and soup!
We haven’t tried pickling scapes yet, but this recipe (scroll down once you click through) in the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange summer newsletter has us itching to!
Perhaps our favorite thing to do with them? Garlic scape pesto! Garlic scapes and basil don’t grow at the same time, so you’ll have to either freeze the scapes and wait for basil season, or get creative.
Here’s how we did it last week:
In a food processor or strong blender, combine one bunch roughly chopped garlic scapes, a good squeeze of lemon juice, a couple pinches of salt, a good glug of olive oil, a small handful of pine nuts or any other nuts, and a good handful of something green and leafy — this would be an excellent use for your beet greens, which are delicious! Chard works too. Process until it gets to a consistency you like — the scapes can be a little tough so I prefer to process the pesto till it’s fairly smooth. You might need to add more olive oil, or a little water, to thin it out. Taste it and see if you want a bit more salt or lemon juice. Pesto is a very forgiving sauce, so don’t be afraid to experiment! Put it in a bowl and stir in a half cup to a cup of grated parmesan cheese. Et voila!
(You can make this pesto without a food processor or blender. Just mince those scapes as finely as you can!)
Pesto is so versatile and will keep for several days in your fridge or almost indefinitely in your freezer. In the last week and a half or so we have put it on pasta, stirred it into scrambled eggs while they were cooking, spread it on top of salmon before sliding it under the broiler, stirred it into sautéed vegetables, and used it as pizza sauce. It would also be great stirred into soup, or any kind of egg, potato, or pasta salad.
Tell us about your garlic scape adventures!
Matt
) about this at the Church Hill pick-up on Wednesday so thought I’d pass along the info & link – 
Shannon
Laura
Sherry
Kate
June 4, 2010
love garlic scapes. a new “recipe” i tried at our Memorial Day cookout: chopped some yukon golds, onion, and scapes, tossed in olive oil and salt/pepper, then wrapped them in foil and put them in the smoker along with the pulled pork. amazing!
(native of richmond area, now living in southwest virginia – we’re practically neighbors
)