Cooking from the Garden: Pasta with Garlic Scapes and White Beans
I’d never had garlic scapes before we started growing garlic. A scape is a shoot the garlic sends up in late Spring that you can cut and eat without harming the development of the plant. It tastes like if garlic and onion had a baby (which means, obviously, delicious).
A couple things I’ve learned about cooking with scapes. First, you don’t need to cook them much at all – they lose their sharp, garlicy flavor very quickly in heat. A fast sautee in butter is really all you need. Second, their gorgeous bright green color darkens immediately after cooking unless you put them in a thin coat of lemon juice right away – so have it ready!
A warning: I cook grandma style. Which is to say, I never make the same recipe twice because I’m always chasing the “perfect” dish. So I won’t be offended if you modify – in fact, if you have any successful additions or changes let me know!
Recipe:
Serves 4
Ingredients:
- 16 oz orecchiette (or other thick pasta)
- Scapes from 8 garlic plants (approx. ½ cup chopped scapes)
- Butter (approx. 2 tbs.)
- 1 cup parmigiano reggiano, shredded
- 1 can white beans
- 1 tsp. red pepper flakes
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 tsp. salt
- Parsley for garnish
- Lemon juice for scapes
Instructions:
- Chop scapes into coins (see photo above), discarding pointy, inedible tops
- Boil water
- While water is heating, lightly sautee scapes in 1 tbs. butter. Once slightly softened, take off heat and lightly coat in lemon juice. Set aside
- Melt 1 tbs. butter, and sautee onions until translucent
- Add white beans, red pepper flakes and salt to onions
- Cook pasta
- While pasta is cooking, stir half of shredded parmigiano reggiano into white bean mixture
- Once pasta is cooked, drain, reserving about ¼ cup cooking liquid
- Combine pasta, cooking liquid, white bean sauce and scapes and toss together
- Plate pasta in bowls, sprinkle reserved parmigiano reggiano and chopped parsley on top
- Salt to taste (I like to add a lot of salt to this, but I have a salt tooth)
- EAT
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