Skillet Fry These Garlic Scape Pancakes

This is the time of year when garlic plants work their magic. They shoot out their scapes: long curly tips that need to be picked off so that the plant invests all of its energy into its bulb, ensuring nice fat heads of garlic to be harvested later in the summer. In the meantime, while we wait for our garlic bulbs to reach full size, we can enjoy elegant scapes. They're gorgeous to look at, and delicious to eat!

Scapes are kind of like a bonus gift when you grow your own garlic. I like to spend hours in the garden photographing them. (Someone usually has to come pry me away). They are so intricate and full of character. In fact, I am so crazy about scapes that they were the subject of my first ever blogpost and cooking video two years ago.

Though pesto is what I most often make out of garlic scapes, there are many other ways to cook them. You can steam like green beans or sautée them with other veggies. A little while back I decided to sneak them into one of my favorite recipes: Chinese scallion pancakes. If you've never had the pleasure of biting into a scallion pancake, you've got to make these! They're chewy and flaky and dunked into a ginger soy dipping sauce, totally addictive.

If your curiosity is piqued, you'll want to watch this video. It's one of my all-time favorite cooking videos, produced by the classy folks over at Saveur Magazine, and featuring the one and only Martin Yan preparing classic scallion pancakes.

I hope Mr. Yan will forgive me for using garlic scapes instead of the traditional scallions! But I tried this out and it worked beautifully.

The thing that makes these pancakes so special is that the dough is layered, or "laminated".

Laminated pastry refers to dough that is alternately layered with fat. Examples are croissants, puff pastry, and danish dough. The more layers there are, the flakier the pastry will be. In this case, lamination is achieved by rolling out the dough, brushing it with sesame oil (and chopped garlic scapes), then rolling it into a 'cigar'.

The 'cigar' is then coiled in on itself into a 'snail.'

The 'snail' is then squashed down with the palm of your hand, rolled out, and fried up in a skillet.

I use spelt flour in my version because I find white flour can be a little gluey at times and I love the nutty flavor of whole spelt. Plus using whole grain gives these a little more nutritional value. I experimented with making three different versions: one using all white flour, one using all spelt, and one using part white and part spelt flours. The latter was my favorite in both texture and flavor. But you can choose the version you'd like to make, the flour amounts are the same either way. Serve these pancakes hot off the skillet, with dipping sauce. They make a great appetizer on their own, or a lovely accompaniment to soups, curries, or stir fries. Enjoy!