We grow garlic in our garden for the garlic heads. The bonus with growing garlic is well before the plants are ready for the main harvest of digging them up is they produce a bonus harvest of scapes. In my experience gardening in the Chicago suburbs about ten miles inland from Lake Michigan, the scapes appear at the end of May or beginning of June. Scapes are the would-be flowers, later the seedheads, that need to be cut off anyway to keep garlic plants’ energy from being diverted from growing their underground heads. The bonus is that garlic scapes are also delicious in their own right.
In the past, I’ve usually used garlic scapes in a rather finely chopped form with other vegetables in cooking. This year I remembered having come across garlic scape pesto recipes in the past and decided to explore that for the scapes I had just judged ready this afternoon. I did a bit of online searching and reading and settled on the Jeff Schwarz and Greg Kessler “Garlic Scape Pesto” recipe from New York Times Cooking as the basis for what I’d make tonight.
I made this with some adjustments, and it came out really well. The recipe calls for “the substitution of sunflower seeds for pine nuts” because they “are a fraction of the cost and do the job just as well.” It happened that I already had pine nuts on hand, though, and no sunflower seeds. So I went with ¼ cup pine nuts—considered toasting them, but opted to use them raw.
The authors also state, “A food processor is a must for this recipe.” I found, as expected, that my classic Oster blender did the job just fine. I didn’t follow the recipe’s pulse times—just pulsed in bursts and watched how things were going.
For the garlic scapes, I used probably seven—compared to the recipe’s “10 to 12.” Since mine were super fresh, cut literally minutes before being prepared, I didn’t have to remove any hard or woody bits at the bottom. Where the recipe says the scapes should be “sliced crosswise” I chopped them into about one inch lengths. Also, the recipe does not talk about this, but I only used the green part of the scapes up to where the flower was developing.
I had some basil leaves on hand from the garden, but not enough. I also had some garden-fresh parsley, so I used a combination of the two, but maybe about half the amount of leaves called for total.
In retrospect I wish I had skipped step four, adding the Parmesan cheese. I did use chunks, and I found they didn’t break up quite as easily as I would have liked. If I were doing it again, I’d leave the cheese out of the pesto itself and just have it on hand with at serving time. One of the notes on this recipe, from a Tom four years ago—and unfortunately I can’t find a way to link directly to a note!—seems right: “never add the cheese to this or any other pesto.. Put the cheese on when serving …” (I did not, however, end up with the sort of “stringy mess” he warns about.) Honestly, I think this garlic scape pesto would have been fine in vegan form without the cheese.
For the the “Juice of one lemon,” I did use a rather large lemon. It probably would have been better with the just of one smaller lemon, but it was still fine.
I had read the note from daf158 from five years ago claiming “The key to a delicious creamy sauce was adding about half a cup of the pasta water after I’d added cheese and blended everything.” In my experience, starchy pasta water does add a nice creamy thickness to most sauces, so I did add some: ¼ cup hot pasta water from near the end of the pasta boiling. I gave that mixture one final pulse to get everything evenly combined.
For the pasta, I used Trader Joe’s Italian Penne Rigate, which to me is the best-value penne rigate you can buy. I used half a pound, so half a bag. (If I had had a nice spaghetti or linguine on hand, I might have cooked a half pound of that instead.) Once the pasta was fully cooked al dente and drained in a colander, I returned the pasta to the pot and stirred in the garlic scape pesto mixture, to fully coat the penne—which held on to the sauce nicely.
While cooking, I had also prepared some salted capers in cold water to serve with the pasta, basically as a bit more than a garnish on top. Finally, I also made some Gardein-brand plant-based meatballs. I did those basically following the package directions: convection bake in the over for 18 minutes at 450°F, middle rack on parchment paper on a baking sheet, flipping each once about halfway through. I served the pasta with some of those in the bowl. Capers were nice. The vegan meatballs were unnecessary, but I think I was really craving protein.
Had some salt, pepper, and olive oil on the table, but didn’t need any.
Enjoyed the meal with a glass of super-cheap Winking Owl Pinot Grigio from California via Aldi—slightly too fruity, but still good.
I would definitely recommend this recipe.
Note: I made the recipe on Thursday night, June 13, 2024, after which I also had this post mostly drafted. I didn’t end up getting the photos added or actually hitting publish until today, Saturday, a couple of days later, but I didn’t go back and adjust tenses in the post body. It’s still written as if this post had gone live Thursday night. As Martha had other plans, this was a meal for myself. I did have leftovers, and this pasta with garlic scape pesto did reheat nicely in the microwave.