Power Green Pesto with Scapes
photo from the noble home
by Maggie Noble
YIELD about 1 quart ( 3-4 cups)
INGREDIENTS
walnuts 1 cup. Pine nuts are traditional but VERY expensive so I often sub walnuts, another oily nut.
scapes 6 each, cut the dried ends off and slice til about an inch before the closed flower bud, more on this tough to find veg below. If you don’t have enough scapes, substitute with 1 clove of garlic for every 2 scapes ( so 3 cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled and ends trimmed if you don’t have any scapes).
kale 2 bunches. Any variety works. Peel the tender greens away from the tough stem. Discard stems, too tough. (Chard or spinach work as substitutes)
salt 3 Tbsp for blanching
basil 1 bunch, stems removed or 1 packed cup ( you can’t have too much).
lemon 1 whole lemon, zested.
parmesan 1 cup shredded ( romano or asiago work, too).
olive oil 3/4 cup. Preferably nice stuff, cold-pressed. This is a stand out flavor and better quality oil means better tasting pesto.
salt and pepper to taste
TOOLS
cutting board
chefs’ knife
saute pan
3 quart pot (or bigger)
tongs
colander
spatula
microplane or zester
food processor or good blender
METHOD
Toast walnuts and scapes. Toss the walnuts and scapes in a saute pan over medium heat. Keep it moving constantly until fragrant. Pour hot walnuts and scapes into the food processor.
Process nuts and scapes. Pulse until the scapes and walnuts are combined, this might take about 15 - 30 seconds.
Blanch kale. More accurately, boil the kale. Blanch means to stop cooking by shocking the product in an icebath after boiling. This is often done in restaurants where the cooks want to prep food before service and flash cook something ( reheat) when food is ordered. I skip this step at home often, making it boiling rather than blanching, technically. Anyway, fill the 3 qt. pot with water and bring to a boil. Add about 3 Tablespoons of salt. You can eyeball this. The water just needs to be salty ( like the ocean). Add the tender kale greens and boil for 3-5 minutes. Shock (or blanch) in an icebath or a bowl of water with ice in it if you want to do it like the pros. If you’re in a hurry, just toss the hot kale into the food processor. I am hoping to take the mystery of the word blanch away by explaining the process above.
Process kale and basil with nuts and scapes. Add the kale and basil to the walnuts and scapes in the food processor. Process until the mix is well-blended. It will probably clump, no problemo. Olive oil is coming to the rescue soon…
Add lemon zest and parmesan to the processor and process again til combined.
Add olive oil. Stream in the oil as you process, the clumpy mass should start to turn into a smooth pesto. Add more olive oil to achieve a smooth consistency.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Photo from Thornhill Organic Farm in South Carolina, 2010
NOTE
There are generally two types of garlic we eat, hard-necked and soft-necked. The hard-necked garlic is the bulb that sends up the scape. Soft-necked don’t have a flowering stem, they just have flat leaves. The scape on the hard-necked garlic shoots up directly from the bulb in late spring, hoping to flower. We harvest it before it blooms so as to stop the bulb from sending all of its energy to the blossom. Hard-necked garlic is harvested in the autumn when the stock or neck is…hard. Check out Savvy Gardening for a detailed description.
The scape is a great by-product but it is hard to find in the average grocery store. Soft-necked garlic stores better than hard-necked so it is better for grocery store type production leaving the average consumer with no scapes. If you are looking for scapes, try your local farmers market. Better yet, plant your own hard-necked garlic this fall and get your own scapes next spring!
I divided the finished pesto into three portions. I used one with a pound of penne pasta that night, ( just toss the pesto in with the cooked and drained noodles). I scooped the other two portions into small freezer-safe plastic bags and gave one to my neighbor who just had a baby and kept one for my freezer for when I miss summer come January/February.
You can toast some ciabatta or French country or Italian bread in a pan or in the over or grill it and dip in the pesto or you can use the pesto as a base sauce for pizza or serve as a sauce under steak or a white fish. So many options!
Photo from the noble home
Photo from the noble home