Kaylin’s Garlic Scape Pesto and Adaptation

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Kaylin’s Garlic Scape Pesto and Adaptation

1/2 cup garlic scapes, finely chopped

4 T fresh lemon juice

1/2 cup olive oil

3 cups grated parmesan cheese

salt to taste

 

 

 

 

 

Put garlic scapes and lemon juice in bowl of food processor with steel

blade, and process until scapes are very finely chopped. With food

processor running, add oil through the feed tube and process 2-3

minutes. Remove lid, add half of parmesan cheese and process 2

minutes, then add the rest of cheese and salt and process 2-3 minutes

more.

 

Serve tossed with hot pasta. I ate my pesto with Dreamfield's

Linguini. This would also be good on fish, as a topping for bread, or

as a seasoning for cooked rice.

 

Source: Kalyn’s Kitchen

Formatted by Chupa Babi in MC: 02.14.07

 

Kaylin: Garlic scapes are the green curly shoots that grow out of

garlic when it's young, and apparently only hardneck garlic produces

garlic scapes. The scapes are sometimes called green garlic or garlic

spears, although many sources call the young, underdeveloped garlic

bulbs green garlic. You know you're a real foodie if you see a new

food ingredient and you simply can't rest until you get to try it.

That's how I felt when I learned about garlic scapes last week, first

from In Mol Araan and then from Tigers and Strawberries. I did manage

to find some at the Salt Lake Downtown Alliance Farmer's Market, which

opened last week, and had fun looking online for ways to use them. I

was surprised to find garlic scape recipes, more garlic scape recipes,

and even more garlic scape recipes! Apparently quite a few people have

discovered this delicacy.

 

Kaylin: I first tried some of my garlic scapes in an omelet. Then I

made a batch of garlic scape pesto, which one online source said was

the most popular use of the scapes. I guess I would have to give the

garlic scapes a mixed review as far as flavor. Although I did enjoy

the garlicy/oniony flavor, I also found it slightly astringent, and

the taste lingered in my mouth longer than I wanted it to! This is an

ingredient I would recommend using sparingly if you're using it as a

flavoring in something like a frittata or omelet. I liked the flavor

of the pesto quite a bit, but in the recipe I'm giving you I reduced

the amount of garlic scapes and increased the amount of cheese quite a

bit from the recipe I tried. Making pesto is an art, not a science

anyway, so if you happen to stumble on some garlic scapes, give it a

try and decide for yourself.

 

ChupaNote: too much fat for me! Try this: add 1 cup of parsley to the

scape, reduce lemon juice to 1 tablespoon. Replace the parmesan with 1

c. mild goat cheese, add 1/2 cup walnuts or blanced almonds after the

greens/lemon juice and before the oil. Forget the salt (goat cheese

has plenty). If the garlic scapes aren't to sharp for you, add 1/2

teaspoon red pepper flakes (or MORE!!!). Thats more fiber and protein,

and less fat. If you want to thin it for pasta sauce, add more olive

oil after processing as needed.

 

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