Garlic stems

Last week, I picked some of these up at the farmers' market. When I bought them, I had no idea of how to use them or really even what they were. I ended up cutting the stems up into lengths of about an inch or so, sauteeing them quickly on high heat, and then tossing them with pasta that had a little pesto (not very much) mixed in. They were quite good - very sweet and crunchy with little garlic flavor. The heads are a different story. When you peel the skin off of these you find a dense group of what look like little green buds. Bite into one of them, and you get intense garlic. I am considering sprinkling them into the bechamel for a cauliflower gratin that's on tonight's menu (although I'll be completely winging it as far as how much to throw in). Picture is below with a partially peeled head at the bottom (if you can make it out):

Garlic stems.jpg

Anyone else ever mess around with these?

Mike, I think they're called garlic scapes, and Dorie Greenspan had a pesto recipe with them in it. I made a version with garlic leaves, but the scapes are the fruiting shoot. Thank you for the photo - I've never seen what the seed heads look like before!

Scapes they are and I cut mine off to encourage bulb growth underground for the rest of the growing season. Never cooked with them but when I cut the scapes this year I will. Thanks for the posts.
Left to mature and planted they will grow garlic - in about 3 seasons. Never done this either....much easier to separate a head and plant the full grown cloves.

Mike, don't know if it will help you with the cooking but I can tell you what I think I know from 25 years of growing my own. As Celia and Christina have said, what you've called "stems" in the garlic world go by "scapes". The flowers you've exposed by peeling the one flower head are called "bulbils". I'm sure the flower head itself has an official name too, but I don't know what that is. All are produced by what called "hard-necked" garlic varieties, those that have a woody stem (the base of the scape once mature) in the middle of the head. The soft-necked garlic you normally encounter in US grocery stores reproduce only from the underground part in the way Christina described; hard-necked kinds also can do it via bulbil.

So much for the terminology. The flower heads on your scapes look much larger than on the varieties I've grown. Mine have typically been no smaller than a pencil with the scape maybe half that size. I'm also guessing from the photo that yours are pretty mature, more so than you'd really want. Like Christina and for the same reason, I cut the scapes off as soon as I notice them. At that stage, they're quite tender and you have a number of options: they can be sauteed as you did, snipped and used raw as mildly garlicky chives equivalent, stir-fried, or simply steamed as a green vegetable - slightly garlicky with a texture a little like asparagus. In that state I don't pay any special attention to the flower heads, which are also quite mild. Yours look a little far gone for that; I'd be inclined use as you would regular garlic. If you run into garlic scapes in future farmers' markets, you might look for more tender examples - I think you'd find them more versatile and better all-around.

Once mine throw scapes (yet to happen here), I'll post a photo if I can re-figure out how to do that. Some varieties do some pretty interesting things, like twist into a 270 degree loop, so that the top of the scape (with flower head) is parallel to the ground!

Aaah, Mark, thank you - that would explain why we don't see them much here. Most of the garlic grown here is soft-neck I believe..

Celia

Thanks, everyone! I had a feeling that these had another name of some sort, but the Asian folks at the farmers' market just called them 'stems'.

The ones I photographed are, I think, on the edge of being too mature (as you mention, Mark). A few of the thicker ones are a bit tough but most of them are quite tender and sweet. I went ahead and put some of the chopped bulbil in the gratin I made tonight, but I don't think I got enough in there to make a difference. I'll have to keep experimenting with that end of the plant.

Again, thanks very much for the help!

I discovered these about 7 years ago at a farmer market and wrote about them in my local paper.
The farmer was giving them away.
Frustratingly , they are a seasonal delicacy and hard to come by. You have to go to them markets at exactly the right time and hope the farmer is there.
I called them 'garlic greens' because it sounded like a good name. (Nice to know they have a real name).

In summary

Garlic greens, are the green leafy part of the garlic that is cut off about 3-4 weeks before harvest.

Use in salads, finely slicing the stem of one of the garlic greens as you would a spring onion. Add to your other organic purchases, such as acid free tomatoes, avocados, purple radishes, lettuce greens and basil and dress with two parts of oil to one part of balsamic vinegar mixed with sugar, salt and pepper.

Cook the remainder of the garlic greens with beans and asparagus to complement an evening meal for two. To a pot of boiling water add a teaspoon of chicken stock powder and about 12-15 whole 'round' green beans. One minute later add about 12 asparagus spears and another minute later add 3-4 whole garlic greens. Cook for exactly one minute longer then drain. Pile the greens onto a plate, smother with butter and season. Match to a herbaceous Sauvignon Blanc.

You can cut off the flower head, removing the leaf part to expose the heads and use as a garnish. You can also sprinkle some of the individual flowers heads into your salad.

The heads in the photo are much more developed than the ones I had. Most of them the flower head was just beginning to form.

Cheers,
Sue