Garlic Scape Paste

I got more garlic scapes from my CSA, so I decide to ferment them a little different than the last time and made a fermented garlic scape paste!

It's just like the paste you ate in Art class as a child, but with more garlic flavor!

When I saw this idea in the Fermented Vegetables book I recently purchased, I liked the idea of it, but as I had just fermented my pile of scapes into dill sticks I thought it would just have to wait until next year. But I was wrong, garlic scape season apparently never ends, and just a week later I had another pound of them in fridge just waiting to be fermented.

And cut into small pieces. Its every scapes dream.

The ingredients for Fermented Garlic Scape Paste:

• 1 lb Garlic Scapes
• 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• 1 Tsp Sea Salt

This was an extremely easy ferment to make. All you had to do was chop the garlic scapes up so they fit in a food processer, blend them until they are the consistency of a paste (like 3 minutes), and then mix in the lemon juice and sea salt.

Use a red spatula to give the whole thing a Christmas feel!

The fermenting of it is where thing get a little unique. When you ferment vegetables, air is the enemy, and keeping them submerged under a brine is your goal. But when making a paste, you can't just add a brine as everything will mix up and float, Plus, you want a paste in the end, not some kind of garlic scape drink.

So to keep the air at bay, I pressed a crock rock down into the top of the scapes. Then I put a ziplock freezer bag into the top of the jar, tucked it around the edges to cover all of the paste, and filled it with water to keep it there. It looked funny but it worked really well.

The old bag in the jar trick, works every time.

I let it ferment like this for 10 days, and then pulled the bag off to see how it came out. The results were incredible! Just by taking the bag off I got a whiff of the lemon garlic scent and it was fantastic.

My daughter was around, so I recruited her to help me transfer the paste into a smaller jar using our new solid foods funnel.

See that smile? Fermenting is fun!

She did great, until she decided after a few scoops she would lick the spoon clean. Needless to say I had to take over the operation at that point.

I also had to get a new spoon.

Anyway, the scape paste is great. You can mix it in salad dressing, sprinkle it on food in place of garlic, and mix it with mayo to put on sandwiches. Or, you can be like Chloe and just eat it straight off the spoon. Whatever works!