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Crisp, fresh garlic scapes are an ingredient you'll want to add to your repetoire – look out for them at your local farmers' market
Cooking salmon to perfection is relatively easy when you know how
I had never cooked with, or even heard of, garlic scapes before I went on the Langley Circle Farm Tour a couple of weeks ago with Tourism Langley. Langley is less than a 60-minute drive away, yet I’d never spent any time there, and I am so glad I finally did – the tour was so much fun, with the highlight tied between milking Rita the Jersey cow at Aldor Acres Dairy Centre and visiting the adorable goats at Milner Valley Cheese!
For lunch we stopped at Vista D’Oro Farms & Winery, where we were treated to an incredible spread: wines from Vista D’Oro and neighbouring winery Domaine de Chaberton, sausages from JD Farms Specialty Turkey, an assortment of local cheese with some of Vista D’Oro’s artisnal preserves (the green tomato with garam masala and the Turkish fig with walnut wine are to die for), mini quiches, and a gorgeous salad topped with edible flowers from Glorious Organics Co-op.
Glorious Organics had a raffle for a gift basket (pictured above) after lunch and I won! I was familiar with and excited about everything in the basket except for the green stalks, which turned out to be garlic scapes – the top of a garlic bulb.
I felt a pang of sadness that I’m so disconnected from the original source of my food that I’d never seen the top of a garlic bulb after more than three decades of eating garlic! But what can you do, at least I know now. And I am a fan – garlic scapes are delicious!
I chopped them up along with some green onions and stirred them into creamy garlic mashed potatoes.
Also in my basket was a bag of Farmers’ Blend mixed greens with various kales, chard, mizuna, flowering bassica tips and other assorted fresh leaves. It was a hearty salad and I served it with one of my favourite dressings, which I will share with you below.
I still struggle with cooking fish to perfection but I learned some helpful tips from this video with YEW Restaurant + Bar executive chef Ned Bell:
Ingredients
Serves 4
Instructions