This Garlic Scape and Radish Green Pesto is so pungent – it is garlic after all! It’s incredibly versatile. and even more satisfying because we grow our own garlic. Hardneck garlic is planted in the fall, and the scapes are harvested the following June. The heads of garlic are pulled a few weeks later. The garlic is the star of the show, but we so look forward to when the scapes make their brief cameo.
Every year, I make five or six half-pints of this Garlic Scape Pesto and freeze it, and we use it all year long. If you end up with a partially filled jar, no worries. Slather it on a piece of sourdough and stash what’s left in the frig – it won’t go to waste. Most recently, I stirred a spoonful into potato salad. Ron likes to spread it on pizza crust before adding the rest of the toppings. It make a great pasta sauce. You could mix it into burgers – there’s no end to what you can do with it.
In this recipe the peppery radish greens mellow the bite of the garlic a bit. You could sub any greens for the radish greens, or increase the volume of chopped scapes to 1 1/2 cups and omit the greens altogether. I would add in pine nuts or walnuts if Ron could eat nuts, but this pesto is delicious without it.
I love that this Garlic Scape and Radish Green Pesto retains its vibrant green color. It’s intoxicating to pull it out of the freezer in the middle of the winter – the vivid green and the intense “eau de garlique” evoke the sights and smells of summer!
Garlic Scape and Radish Green Pesto
Ingredients
- 17 garlic scapes (approximately)
- 1/2 cup radish greens
- 1 cup olive oil (and a bit more for topping off the jars)
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 t salt
- pepper to taste
Instructions
- Prep the veg – Cut the bulb end off the scape and chop each scape into 1/4 inch pieces, for a heaping cup. Destem the radish greens, then rinse them and spin them dry (in a salad spinner). Give them a rough chop.
- Process the veg – Add the scapes and the radish greens to the bowl of your food processor. Process until uniformly chopped into almost a paste. Then, while the machine is running, pour in the olive oil in a steady stream. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the Parmesan, salt and pepper, and pulse to combine.
- Spoon into jars – Spoon into 1/2 pint jar, leaving 1/2 inch head room. Pour a thin layer of olive oil across the the top of the pesto, and close the jar with a lid. Label and freeze.
