In Season: Garlic Scapes, A Primer
This week Market Master Ginger Rapport of the Beaverton Farmers Market sent out a primer on garlic scapes, the curly green whips that are the flowering stems of the garlic plant. They are at their tender best in late spring and early summer, when they still have their signature curl—if they're not harvested, the stems will straighten out and point skyward, by which time they also get hard and fibrous.
Rapport quotes market vendor Emma Rollins of Sun Feast Farm (top photo), who waxed eloquent about her favorite allium:
"Solstice time feels like the right moment to talk about garlic. This is when garlic scapes, the flowering stalk of garlic, curls and twirls its leek-like body in the most fantastic way! For me as a farmer, garlic scapes mark our true turn toward summer, always arriving right around the longest days of the year.
"As days lengthen, plants respond. Onions size up and the garlic needs you to pick the scape so its energy can go into the bulb, not up to the flower. If you left it, the garlic would flower in a purple pom-pom of little blooms. Each of these flowers turns to a bulbil, a little garlic seed, which is how garlic propagated itself before people began harvesting the bulb or head of garlic and breaking it up into the cloves to replant and propagate more that way.
“Why is garlic MY timekeeper? We plant garlic as the season closes, [at] Halloween time. Tucking cloves into the dark cold wet soil as so much of the field wilts back with frost for the season, garlic begins to turn the wheel toward the promise of next season. We finish the year planting into the next. We follow the sun by looking to the garlic that sprouts in the depth of winter, and come February, with the Persephone—when we enter over 10 hours of light a day, what a plant needs to actively grow—garlic marks this time and comes to life. There is green garlic before the bulb starts to form, then scapes for solstice [with] harvest come July when the stalks begin to dry out and sometimes tip over.”
So once you get your garlic scapes home, then what?
The simplest way to prepare them is simply throwing them on the grill after trimming off the end of the stalk. (Some recipes will have you coat them in oil, but I find that the oil drips off and causes the coals to flame up, which deposits a bitter film of burnt oil on your vegetables.) After a couple of minutes the scapes will brown over the fire, so turn them over and brown the other side. Then put them on a plate and drizzle with a good olive oil, salt and maybe a squeeze of fresh lemon. The easiest side dish or appetizer ever!
Just this last week I made a pesto from fresh scapes, processing five or six with a big handful of parsley from my neighbor's garden along with the requisite garlic, pine nuts (or walnuts or hazelnuts) and enough olive oil to make a smooth paste. Stir in some finely grated parmesan and you're ready to stir it into pasta or garnish a piece of salmon.
Rapport reports that her assistant market manager, Sue Poff, received a jar of garlic scape powder "made by her son who grows a ton of garlic every year" and she describes the flavor as "milder than regular garlic powder but used in much the same way." Easily dried if you own a dehydrator—drying them in the oven at its lowest setting is just as simple, though it may take longer—just slice the scapes into one to two-inch pieces and, once dried, grind them to a powder in a spice grinder or blender.
Garlic Scape Frittata
I love frittatas because they can be made from whatever vegetables or meats you happen to have on hand, sautéed and combined with eggs. Quick and easy, forgiving and always delicious, it's almost the perfect meal!
2 Tbsp. butter or olive oil
1/2 each green, red and ancho peppers, or about a heaping cup of any peppers, finely chopped
4 green onions, sliced into 1/8" slivers
4-6 mushrooms, halved and sliced thinly
5 garlic scapes, sliced in 1" pieces, leaving the bulbs intact
6 baby Yukon Gold potatoes (1 cup) chopped in 1/4" cubes
12 eggs
1/2 c. cheese, grated
Salt and pepper to taste
Melt the butter over medium heat until it sizzles. Add potatoes and sauté briefly till slightly tender. Add rest of vegetables and sauté until very tender. While vegetables are cooking, break eggs into a mixing bowl and stir until well-mixed, adding salt to taste. When vegetables are done, pour the eggs over the top, sprinkle on the cheese and cover the pan, reducing the heat to low.
When the eggs are cooked on the bottom but still runny on top, put the pan under the broiler briefly (just don't walk away or get distracted like I sometimes do!). When lightly browned on top, remove the pan from the broiler.
To serve, run a spatula around the inside of the skillet to loosen the eggs. Then invert a serving platter over the skillet and, holding them firmly together, turn the platter and skillet upside down. The frittata should plop out of the skillet onto the platter.
Top photo from Beaverton Farmers Market, a generous sponsor of GoodStuffNW.
