Meet My New Friend, Garlic Scapes

Another post from my backlog... whoopsie...

I'm a newbie-foodie: although I've enjoyed cooking since I was a child, this is the first summer of my obsession with fresh, seasonal cooking. My passion was born in the winter, of all times. I read books and cookbooks and recipes and websites in the dead of winter, became a seasonal food convert, and realized that I had things to cook like potatoes... and turnips...

So I went to the second week of the farmer's market (in May, granted) and was dreadfully disappointed that no farmers had managed to squeeze any veggies out of their fields. Demanding, I know. Turns out, eating seasonal food requires waiting for the plants to grow.

However, at Farmers at the Firehouse in mid-June, I struck gold. Mountains of tender lettuce. Broccoli the size of volleyballs. And a pile of wispy, spiral-curled shoots with a delicate garlic aroma that made my stomach growl.

My friends, meet garlic scapes. Scapes are the miniature flower stalks of certain kinds of garlic. Apparently, they only show up at the farmer's market a few weeks each year, and are a harbinger of summer's bounty. Count me in.

However, recipe searches on epicurious.com and foodnetwork.com turned up zero results - can you believe it? Fortunately, my new cookbook had a recipe for a soup*. This led me to a website that suggested making pesto with my new friends. This sent me to the newest issue of my favorite magazine, which had a non-garlic-scape fun pesto. And that sent me to the kitchen, where summer officially began.

Summer Is Here Green Risotto

2 cups chicken stock
2 1/2 cups water
2 cups baby spinach
1/2 cup basil leaves
Good handful of flat-leaf parsley
6 garlic scapes, divided
3 tablespoons butter, cut into chunks, divided
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 shallot, minced
1 1/4 cups short-grain rice (arborio)
1/4 cup quinoa, rinsed
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 - 1/2 cup grated pecorino romano cheese, plus extra
Truffle oil, to drizzle

Combine stock and water in a medium sauce pan. Warm over low heat.

While the broth warms, combine spinach, basil, parsley, 2 scapes (cut into chunks) and 2 tablespoons of butter chunks in a food processor. Process until you have a pesto, about 10-15 seconds.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Slice the remaining 4 scapes into 1/4-inch diagonal cuts. Add the scapes and the shallot and heat until scapes soften and shallot is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the rice and rinsed quinoa and mix to coat the grains. Cook for 3 minutes, then add the wine.

When the wine has been absorbed, add a ladle-full of warm stock to the pot and stir well.When the rice has absorbed the stock, add another ladle's worth. Continue this process until most of the stock has been absorbed and the rice is tender but firm to the bite, about 25 minutes. You may or may not use all of the stock.

Remove the pan from heat, add the final tablespoon of butter chunks, stir and cover. Wait three to five minutes - seriously - then stir in the spinach-herb-scape pesto and the cheese until. Serve on plates with a drizzle of truffle oil and a sprinkling of extra cheese.

Tasty tips:
1. The quinoa packs a nutrient- and fiber-punch into the risotto that rice can't do on its own, but make sure you give it a good rinse in a fine-mesh sieve before adding it to the pot.

2. When you make risotto, your pan should not be so hot that each addition of stock results in a cloud of chicken-scented steam. You want the stock to go into the rice, not into the air.

3. For an extra-rich risotto, you can increase the butter quantity in the final step, or add 1/4 cup of heavy cream. You must actually let the risotto sit, covered, for the fat and starch to combine to develop that supremely creamy risotto quality. It will be good if you rush it, but it's great if you wait.

4. You will have garlic breath. Just know this, and own it.

*I made the soup, too. Yum. All this with $2 of scapes.

More Summer: Roast Chicken with Stuffed Zucchini Flowers

My backlog of posts that are written-but-not-posted has gotten the better of me. This is from 4 weeks ago - obviously, the farmer's markets have had vegetables for a while now!

The farmer's market finally has more to offer than plants, and I couldn't be more excited. A recent purchase of a freshly-butchered chicken may have changed my life forever. Really.

I've read it and read it and read it: Know thy farmer. Eat local. Know thy farmer. Eat local. But last week was my first chance to really try it, when I asked the proprietor of the corner stand at Farmers @ the Firehouse what he had been up to this week. His answer? Lots and lots of butchering.

I'm not originally from Pittsburgh; I grew up in central-northern Michigan (but really, what part of Michigan isn't northern?) at the corner of Soybean and Corn. 4H was big, but I come from an academic, townie family, not a farm family. While I certainly learned to appreciate the bounty of the farmer's market as a child, I never had to work the land myself, and meat always came in plastic trays and freezer bags from the supermarket.

Not anymore.

Matthew and another friend came for dinner on the Night of the Life-Altering Bird. I thought the star of the show was going to be the ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers. But instead, the three of us couldn't shut up about the chicken. I barely did anything to it. I guess I never tasted chicken before.

Roasted Chicken with Stuffed Zucchini Flowers

For the chicken:
One 3 - 4 lb chicken, preferably butchered within the week
8 sprigs thyme
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup fresh mixed chopped herbs: thyme, oregano, basil, sage, parsley or whatever savory herbs you have on hand
Olive oil, to drizzle

For the stuffed zucchini flowers:
12 zucchini flowers, rinsed
1 clove garlic, minced
1 small shallot, minced
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 cup ricotta
1/4 cup fresh asiago, grated
1/8 fresh mixed chopped herbs, as above
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Day 1
1. Flatten (aka butterfly) the chicken and place it on a rimmed baking sheet.
2. Loosen the skin over the breast. Slide a full sprig of thyme between the breast meat and skin. Repeat on the other breast and over each thigh/leg.
3. Mix salt and chopped herbs together into a loose paste. Cover the skin of the chicken liberally with the salt paste. Refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 8 hours or overnight.

Day 2
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Drizzle the chicken with olive oil, then roast on the baking sheet for about one hour, or until a thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reads 175 degrees. Remove from oven and let stand 10 minutes.
2. Once the bird is in the oven: Heat olive oil over medium-low heat. Saute shallot and garlic until translucent, taking care not to burn the garlic.
3. Mix the sauteed garlic and shallot with the ricotta, asiago and minced herbs in medium bowl. Transfer ricotta mixture to a pastry bag, or make one yourself by cutting the corner off a zipper baggie.
4. Pipe the ricotta mixture into each of the cleaned zucchini flowers and place them on a cookie sheet. Drizzle melted butter over the flowers.
5. Put the flowers in the oven when the chicken has about 10 minutes to go. When you remove the chicken, let the flowers go another 5-10 minutes, until the cheese is oozing out and bubbling on the cookie sheet.
6. Serve the chicken in quarters with a few bubbly-cheese flowers on the side.

Tasty Tips
Refrigerating the chicken in the nude helps the skin crisp up in the oven. Don't shirk the fridge time... or the resting time, post-roast.
I found one of these guys inside my zucchini flowers... fortunately BEFORE I stuffed it! Double-check yours as well, or you'll be eating unintentional escargot.