At the start of the summer, at the very first farmers market of the season, I picked up some garlic scapes and organic mushroom caps and put them together to form this Paleo dish.
You may find garlic scapes at the farmers market but they have quite a short season, arriving around late spring.
Even though garlic scapes have such a short period of availability, they have such a mild flavor that you may not even notice if you leave them out of this recipe altogether. If push comes to shove, you could always use green onions or chives in their place for a more day-to-day use.
What Are Garlic Scapes?
The scapes are the flower stems that garlic plants produce before the bulbs mature. In most parts of the world, people make use of many things we tend to throw away, and that includes garlic scapes.
“They are usually cut off of the plant, since leaving them on only diverts the plants strength away from forming a plump bulb. If left on, they eventually form small bulbils that can be planted to grow more garlic, but it takes 2–3 years for them to form large bulbs. Many gardeners simply toss their scapes in the compost, but garlic scapes are both edible and delicious, as are the bulbils.” Source
Additional Uses for Garlic Scapes
You can sauté them in olive oil over low heat on the stovetop. Add them to an omelet, use as an ingredient when making homemade broth, top your salad with them, blend with all your favorite ingredients for meatloaf, blitz them in the food processor to make a scape pesto or even pickle them. If they’re tender enough you can even eat them raw.
