garlic scapes

Guess what I found at the Union Square Greenmarket for a dollar this past Saturday?  I know, a bunch of other food bloggers and publications have probably already jumped all over these, but I doubt many non-food nerds have ever actually interacted with scapes.  You know how green onions are mostly onion shoots?  Well, garlic scapes follow pretty much the same principle, though it seems that they’re still a very seasonal vegetable.  The taste is garlicky throughout, but is obviously much, much mellower than the bulb.

You can do pretty much anything with these, but I’ve heard garlic scape pesto being bandied about a lot on these here internets, so maybe that’s the way to go.  These looked too much like alien tentacles for me to demolish them in a food processor, so I sauteed them with some leeks and lobster and put it over linguini.  I usually don’t combine garlic with lobster, but the scapes’ taste was so subtle that it really didn’t overpower the lobster flavor at all (which is saying a lot, because I used a not-too-flavorful 6-pounder that was left over from our July 4 dinner).