I’m always excited to try a new ingredient, so when curly green stalks labeled as “garlic stems” showed up in my usual grocery store, I was intrigued. Apparently, these are more commonly referred to as garlic scapes and are the stalk of the garlic plant (growing above ground from the tasty garlic bulb we are familiar with underground). The taste is spicy and garlicky, but mellows out after a quick cook, and the texture is pleasantly crisp, similar to green beans. A stir fry made perfect sense to me for this unique ingredient, and I thought the salty dried shrimp and spicy sambal oelek (both ingredients you can find at most Asian groceries) complemented the scapes well. I’ll definitely be picking up more garlic scapes the next time I see them!
