My top five facts & recipes about scapes
If you haven't seen those green curly scapes in your CSA lineup yet, you'll see them any day now. The garlic is throwing up it's seed head: known as the garlic scape. That's not great for the garlic root underground, so our farmer's nip that seed head off.
And we eat it!
Five Facts about Scapes:
- They store well- up to a month -- put them in the fridge in plastic bags that let some air in.
- There are only a few harvests so enjoy them while you can!
- They are a milder version of garlic
- They can be sauteed, grilled, pureed, ribboned (into fettuccine like noodles!) with a vegetable peeler, they can be added to eggs or fritattas, they can be pickled. . . Wahoo!
- They pack a nutritional punch!
Top 5 recipes:
- Scape gazpacho by Ellie Costello, owner of Black Bear Soups
- Scape pesto -- from Vanilla and Bean. I think a great experiment would be trying this with carrot tops or parsley instead of basil. Or spinach, or kale! Apparently this is delicious when added to grilled cheese sandwiches (kid alert!).
- Sauteed with asparagus (and some tamari, ginger, etc.)
- Stick them on the grill. No recipe required.
- Scape Hummus by A Dish of Daily Life
You might be picking up on the fact that garlic scapes can be put in place of garlic in many dishes. Please share your thoughts and favorites in the comments on garlic scapes! Until next week, happy cooking!