60 Second Chef: How to Cook Garlic Scapes

I'll be honest.... garlic scapes are not a very common pantry item for me. In fact, until a couple of weeks ago I hadn't actually heard of them. That was until I went to visit the Garlic Farm down on the Isle of Wight.

Colin (AKA the Indiana Jones of the garlic world) started The Garlic Farm with a burning passion for all things allium* and took me for a wander to see all the different varieties and hear about the legends and mysticism surrounding them.

Garlic Scapes are the stalk that grows out of the garlic bulb above the soil. The season is really short as the farmers chop off the scape to encourage the bulb to grow bigger (the nutrients all go into the bulb instead of being shared across the bulb and the scape). So over here in the UK you'll only see them gracing our dinner tables for about a month a year in June.

Cooking them is simple - you pretty much just treat them like asparagus. You could quickly roast them, or as I've done here just chop them down to a size that fits your pan, drop them into boiling, salted water for a minute, then drain and stir fry them.

They've got a really subtle garlicky flavour which would be perfect alongside a fresh piece of fish like sea bass or bream.

*That's garlic to you and me.

Here's a little more info about garlic (thanks wiki!):

Garlic is widely used around the world for its pungent flavor as a seasoning or condiment.

The garlic plant's bulb is the most commonly used part of the plant. With the exception of the single clove types, garlic bulbs are normally divided into numerous fleshy sections called cloves. Garlic cloves are used for consumption (raw or cooked) or for medicinal purposes. They have a characteristic pungent, spicy flavor that mellows and sweetens considerably with cooking.

Other parts of the garlic plant are also edible. The leaves and flowers (bulbils) on the head (spathe) are sometimes eaten. They are milder in flavor than the bulbs, and are most often consumed while immature and still tender. Immature garlic is sometimes pulled, rather like a scallion, and sold as "green garlic". When green garlic is allowed to grow past the "scallion" stage, but not permitted to fully mature, it may produce a garlic "round", a bulb like a boiling onion, but not separated into cloves like a mature bulb. It imparts a garlic flavor and aroma in food, minus the spiciness. Green garlic is often chopped and stir-fried or cooked in soup or hotpot in Southeast Asian (ie. Vietnamese, Thai, Lao, Cambodian, Singaporean) and Chinese cookery, and is very abundant and low-priced. Additionally, the immature flower stalks (scapes) of the hardneck and elephant types are sometimes marketed for uses similar to asparagus in stir-fries.

Inedible or rarely eaten parts of the garlic plant include the "skin" covering each clove and root cluster. The papery, protective layers of "skin" over various parts of the plant are generally discarded during preparation for most culinary uses, though in Korea immature whole heads are sometimes prepared with the tender skins intact. The root cluster attached to the basal plate of the bulb is the only part not typically considered palatable in any form.

Garlic is a fundamental component in many or most dishes of various regions, including eastern Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, northern Africa, southern Europe, and parts of South and Central America. The flavour varies in intensity and aroma with the different cooking methods. It is often paired with onion, tomato, or ginger. The parchment-like skin is much like the skin of an onion, and is typically removed before using in raw or cooked form. An alternative is to cut the top off the bulb, coat the cloves by dribbling olive oil (or other oil-based seasoning) over them, and roast them in an oven. Garlic softens and can be extracted from the cloves by squeezing the (root) end of the bulb, or individually by squeezing one end of the clove. In Korea, heads of garlic are fermented at high temperature; the resulting product, called black garlic, is sweet and syrupy, and is now being sold in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

Garlic may be applied to different kinds of bread, usually in a medium of butter or oil, to create a variety of classic dishes, such as garlic bread, garlic toast, bruschetta, crostini and canapé.

[janicebrissonzelney]

Just tried them for the first time using your recipe and they were amazing!! Thank you!

[mooretimeinthekitchen]

I'm trying to grow my own garlic this year and am really looking forward to trying the scapes! Thanks for the recipe!

[richardlock]

Great -- particularly when you/ve grown them yourself ... here in Quebec I plant them in the Fall and harvest them NOW in June

[JonathanFox-ujrv]

WOW! Thank you! Will us this in the new year. Got a bed full of garlic.

[reddwarf]

Wow!!! I have always wanted to try garlic scapes and found them at a farmers market. I charred them on the grill first and they were ok. Next I tried this recipe and PERFECTION! My fave new vegetable! So delicious. Thank you! Only making them this way from now on.

[cadillacranch]

We made these just how you said to. They were great

[MrsJennJen]

I just picked some garlic scapes this morning and I plan to grill them with some olive oil, salt and pepper.  Thanks for the idea of adding lemon and cheese.

[marksmith]

I just harvested about 40 scapes and cooked them per your recipe. They are delicious.

[tifanymiller]

I actually chop them up fine, dry them and use them in applications where garlic would be used. I cannot eat garlic but I can tolerate scapes. I use the dried scapes like an herb always have so I find this preperation very interesting.

[tristanpersaud]

Being the son of British parents I know well enough to dodge the boiling and just go straight to sautéing them.

[fathersamuel]

My family agrees, these taste like fresh 💩