When Life Gives You Garlic Scapes, Make Pesto

In the 3-5 weeks between the end of Spring and beginning of Summer, mother nature gives unto the chow-loving crowd something so goofy looking and funky, generally only food dorks are willing to venture into it. That’s a shame, because garlic scapes are profoundly delicious when given the proper treatment.

Now, you’re probably asking: What the eff is a garlic scape? This, my friends, is a garlic scape:

See? It’s like a garlicky, delicious snake. Essentially, a garlic scape is the stem of a seed head that the garlic bulb grows from. The reason it’s only around for a few weeks annually is because after a certain point, it begins straightening out, which makes it incredibly tough and much less flavorful. In its young form, however, scapes are garlicky enough to be delicious but certainly not as pungent as straight-up garlic bulbs. They also have a bit of grassy greenness to them, which adds a bit of So, when I saw these babies at the Greenmarket, whether to buy them or not wasn’t the question … it was what to do with them?

If you’re more of the preserving type, these would make a marvelous pickle, and can also be diced fine and used to make compound butter. Since I’m more of the impulsive, want-to-eat-this-now type, I opted to turn the scapes into a pesto. If you’ve got a food processor, it couldn’t be simpler: A bunch of garlic scapes, a lemon, some toasted pine nuts, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and olive oil:

It’s time-saving to chop up the scapes a bit before throwing them into the food processor, but other than that, it’s exactly the same as making pesto. The lemon juice here is key, as it’ll keep the pesto from turning brown. Go heavier on it than you think you’ll need just to be safe. OK, all set … Ingredients into processor, turn on, drizzle olive oil. Done. See?

Now that the pesto is made, the uses are limitless. For one, it makes a fantastic spread that I’ve been employing on sandwiches since this batch was made. The pesto mixed in with some sour cream would certainly make a tremendous dip for chips or even a terrific taco garnish. Here though, I stirred some into some pea risotto with seared salmon, bringing nature’s spring pleasures into my belly on a cool, rainy night.