A Recipe (and Coupon): Brine Pickled Garlic Scapes

Brine-pickled garlic scapes, a near-perfect example of waste-not, want-not thinking, makes excellent use of a seemingly obscure food – one cherished only by gardeners and only the most enthusiastic of farmers market goers: the humble garlic scape.  The garlic scape, a long and serpentine stem that protrudes from garlic as it grows before opening into a pale, green-white flower bud is one of those rare delicacies you simply won’t find in a grocery store. In the spring and early summer, garlic growers cut down these shoots sending the plant’s energy that would spring upward toward the sky down into the bulb, fattening it like a goose fed on figs and nuts before landing on a lucky family’s Christmas table.

Like broccoli, nasturtiums and artichokes, garlic scapes number among a handful of plants that we eat consume in flower form.  The stems, even when harvested young, can be brittle and tough and are best sautéed and used in place of cloves of garlic in various dishes, but the flowers themselves can be quite tender and are pleasantly garlicky when eaten fresh and raw.  I like to ferment them, just as I do with so many vegetables, not only because I value the role that lactic acid fermentation plays in our cross-cultural culinary heritage as well as its critically important function in improving the nutrient profile of the foods we eat, but also because it’s an almost magical process: something fresh and fragile that could so easily putrefy and turn inedible is transformed through the action of beneficial microorganisms into something quite different.  Those fresh foods are transformed into this state of extended, even nearly permanent, life, and that’s a beautiful thing.

In making these pickled garlic scapes, or any naturally fermented vegetable, you need so very little: a crock, some salt, a starter.  After all, naturally preserved and fermented foods like these are peasant foods – borne of a way to extend the harvest from summer’s bounty well into the deep, dark and cold days of winter when nothing grows and cupboards are otherwise bare.  In our quest for easy fixes, strictly formulaic and reliable results, we’ve forgotten the lost arts.  We’ve given up the unpredictable excitement and slow process of brine pickling in favor of the stalwart reliability and nearly instantaneous process of vinegar pickling.  I, for one, prefer my foods wild and unpredictable, strange and variable and undeniably traditional.

Fermentation is not an exact science.  Indeed, so little of cooking is  an exact science for when a cook is caught up teaspoons and kitchen timers, it’s easy to become so distracted by precision that she’ll forget to lose herself to the art, pleasure and rhythm of preparing food.  Vegetable fermentation can be unpredictable, and that’s okay; rather, not only is it simply okay, but it’s one of the best aspects of reviving this lost tradition for its that variable and unpredictable nature that protracts the excitement and anticipation of cooking, and therein lies a true pleasure.  And while no one wants to spend good money for unpredictable results, there are a few things that you can do to maximize the art of preparing vegetable ferments at home:

1. It’s about surface area.  When the surface are of the vegetable you’re fermenting is greater, use a starter to improve your ferment.  For example, a garlic scape or a whole cucumber has a greater surface are than a shred of cabbage.  Using a starter culture to inoculate your ferment will help to boost the likelihood that ferment will succeed, limiting the chance that things will go awry due to contamination.  Many people use fresh whey to start their ferments, but I tend to use a purchased vegetable starter culture (see sources) when I’m not fermenting a shredded vegetable, because it’s easy and I’m happy with the results every time.  You certainly don’t have to use one, and many a good ferment is done through the wild method.
2. Use a crock or jar fitted with a carboy. I’ve fermented many a vegetable using only a mason jar or a ceramic bowl and weighted plate, but using the appropriate fermentation device can reduce the likelihood, however small, that your batch will go awry.  I use large gallon-sized glass jars fitted with carboys, and am saving up for a nice ceramic Harsch fermentation crock.  These jars and crocks are specifically designed for fermentation.  Consider this, would you use a cast iron skillet to boil pasta?  Sure, you could, in theory, but that doesn’t mean the skillet is optimal.  So to with your equipment: yes, a mason jar works, but it’s not necessarily optimal.  If you’re serious about preserving the harvest through vegetable fermentation, save your money and pick up the right equipment.
3. Be relaxed about time. Sometimes a ferment takes a week, sometimes only a few days.  Sometimes, it takes months to get a good and complexly flavored sauerkraut.  Many factors play into the length of time it takes to bring your kimchi, sour pickles or pickled garlic scapes to perfection: the ambient temperature of your home, the season, the freshness of your vegetables, the use (or lack) of a starter culture, your family’s preferences.  So keep your eye on them, and use the time frame given in recipes as a guideline, not a strict rule.  Similarly, storing vegetable ferments is also fairly relaxed.  I’ve had sour beets last for two years – until we finally gobbled them all up.  I have a jar of preserved lemons that’s lurked in my fridge for two and a half years and its no worse for the time.  The general rule is this: if it looks bad, smells bad or tastes bad, it probably is bad.  Other than that, relax a little: those wee beasties lurking in our sauerkrauts, sauerrübens and pickled garlic scapes are good for us.

Incidentally, if you’re interested in getting started preserving vegetables at home through lactic acid fermentation, you might want to check out this email from the preserve the bounty challenge hosted here at Nourished Kitchen. As a quick note, for those of you who threw your name into the hat for the recent giveaway of the ultimate fermentation kit, we’ve announced the winner, but everyone can still take advantage of the discount.

Pickled Garlic Scapes

Choose just the tenderest and youngest flowers for these pickled garlic scapes, leaving the scape's woody stem for use in a naturally probiotic, fermented relish or to use fresh.  These pickled scapes are strongly flavored and deeply robust with garlic flavor.  You can always add spices to the mixture as well, dill and bay do nicely, but garlic lovers will revel in the simple combination of scape, salt and starter.

Pickled Garlic Scapes: Ingredients

• about 1 1/2 teaspoons unrefined sea salt
• 1 package vegetable starter culture (see sources) OR 1/4 cup fresh whey, if desired
• enough garlic scapes, trimmed with woody stems removed, to fit in a 1-quart jar

Pickled Garlic Scapes: Equipment

• vegetable fermentation master OR crock (see sources)

Pickled Garlic Scapes: Method

1. Stir sea salt and starter culture or whey together with one quart fresh, filtered and dechlorinated water until the salt and starter culture are dissolved into the water completely.
2. Pack your crock or fermentation master full of trimmed garlic scapes.
3. Pour the mixture of water, salt and starter over the scapes, ensuring that they're completely covered by the brine.
4. Ferment at room temperature for at least a week, preferably two or even three or four (fermentation is not an exact science), as it suits you.
5. Once the scapes have pickled to your liking, remove them to the refrigerator or a cool cellar for storage.

YIELD: 1 quart

TIME: about 5 minutes (preparation), 1 to 4 weeks (fermentation)