Korean-style Stir-Fried Garlic Scapes (maneul jjong bokkeum / 마늘쫑볶음)

I adore these things. So much. I think I just like stems in general, because I also love pea tips and sweet potato stems. Something about the vibrant green color and the tender but stringy texture? I have no clue.

Anyways, we did our annual farm trip on Sunday and I carted home a few souvenirs, including a giant bag of scapes that we harvested at the farm on Sunday and a tomato-red sunburn. My nose hurts a bit when I scrunch it and my entire chest, shoulders, and arms make me look like I have mad Asian glow. Oddly, my neck area remained completely burn-free. My coworker is hypothesizing that my chin shaded my neck from the sun, which has now made me self-conscious about the size of my chin.

I was perplexed that people seem to have difficulties using up all their scapes. There's sooo many ways to eat them! They can be sauteed, stir-fried, frozen, pickled, pureed into pesto, sprinkled around like mini garlic bits onto pasta and pizza, and folded into omelettes. They are also one of my favorite banchan, which I found out last year after calling my mom excitedly to tell her about this new and unusual vegetable that I found in my CSA share. She drily noted that while it was good I was excited about discovering new vegetables, I had been eating these all my life in the form of 마늘쫑장아찌 (maneul jjong jangachi).

Unlike lettuce, which gets turned into salad 99 times out of 100, garlic scapes are so versatile that I pretty much never can have too much of them. So...an ode to garlic scapes. Excpect to see a few different posts on them in the coming weeks. My goal this year is to figure out how to make my beloved maneul jjong jangachi from scratch. I was too lazy to translate recipes last night though, so I just went with maneul jjong bokkeum.

Korean-style Stir-Fried Garlic Scapes (Maneul Jjong Bokkeum)
Ingredients:
- 1 bunch garlic scapes
- Soy sauce
- Sugar or honey
- Salt
- Cooking oil
- Sesame oil (optional)
- Toasted sesame seeds (optional)

Directions:
1. Wash scapes and shake off excess moisture.
2. Chop scapes into 1 - 2 inch segments. Keep the buds! They're yummy :)
Optional step: If you want, you can blanch the scapes before stir-frying.
3. In a pan, heat some oil (add sesame oil if desired).
4. When oil is hot, add scapes and stir frequently until scapes have begun to shrivel and darken. Season with salt.
5. When scapes are dark green in color, add a few splashes of soy sauce and some sugar to taste. Not sure about the proportions, but I think equal parts soy sauce and sugar should do it. Too little is better than too much, as you can always add more of both later.
6. Cook for a few more minutes, stirring frequently to ensure nothing burns.
7. Garnish with toasted sesame seeds if desired and serve with rice. Or, if you are lazy like me, eat them with triscuits. Carbs are carbs lol.