Something new

I found these garlic scapes at the Chinese grocery store recently, one of my sisters had told me they are good stir fried with beef. She said they call them garlic stems in the Chinese restaurants. Well they called them garlic hearts in this grocery store. I found a simple recipe on youtube. It recommended stir frying for about a minute in a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce, topping with sesame seeds. However it tasted very peppery and the stems were very tough at that point. So I decided to stir fry them for 9 minutes as described in another youtube video and they were sweet and crunchy just like she said! They have a mild garlic taste with the texture of asparagus.

Garlic scapes are the shoots that grow from garlic bulbs.  I found a nice article here.  Further research led me to discover there are 2 types of garlic, hardneck and softneck.  The softneck garlic is the kind we see at the grocery store.  This type has a green onion type of soft stalk.  The hardneck garlic has a sturdy stalk called a scape.