If you’re heading to farmers’ markets these days, you’ll likely see piles of a green curlicue with a small whitish bulb in the middle. It looks like a green onion that’s been curled up like scissor curled ribbon.
They’re garlic scapes. Farmers are snapping them off the stalks this time of year to let the rest of the more familiar below ground garlic bulb develop. Many folks just throw scapes away or compost them.
I think they’re delicious. They have a mild garlic flavor, but the stalks, even when snapped right on time, are rougher than green onion.
Don’t let that deter you from experimenting with them. I snapped off a bag load of scapes from my family’s garlic row last weekend.
Last year – my first exposure to garlic scape cooking – I used them in stir fry meals or chopped them up and added bits to cold salads. I’ve also experimented with dried scapes, using them to flavor soups.
Today, I rough chopped the whole lot and threw them into a food processor with a little olive oil and coarse kosher salt to make garlic pesto.
I’d never done that before, but I’m loving the flavor.
Right away, I used some of the pesto as a marinade/rub for chicken we plan to grill tonight. For tomorrow, I’m thinking I’ll slather the rest onto slices of a baguette I picked up from Red Hen Bakery at the Oak Park Farmers Market today.
Virtual Farmgirl 