While editing one of the newspaper’s columns last week, I did a little independent investigation on behalf of our recipe devotees.

Today’s piece by Corvallis writer Jan Roberts-Dominguez mentions green garlic, a bit of produce likely unfamiliar to those who don’t have home gardens like Jan. But non-gardeners should be able to find green garlic at farmers markets, Jan promised.

Indeed, I located this young garlic reminiscent of green onions at last week’s Medford gathering of the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market. Runnymede Farm of Rogue River sells bunches for $1.

On Jan’s suggestion, I chopped white and tender green portions in a food processor and blended the green garlic with several tablespoons of Best Foods mayonnaise. But, deviating from the composed salad recipe that accompanied her column in today’s A la Carte section, I added about 1⁄4 teaspoon of wasabi paste to my mayonnaise. Instead of folding the mayonnaise around grilled chicken, I simply used it as a condiment on my homemade tuna burger.

I never met a mayonnaise concoction I didn’t like, but the flavors were so compelling that I scraped the food processor bowl for that last bit after finishing my burger.

Tomorrow’s growers market offers shoppers their last chance to enjoy green garlic, for this year, at least. Because green garlic stalks are remnants of Runnymede’s efforts to thin its primary crop of mature garlic, they’re available in small quantities for only about three weeks in spring, said farmer Teri White.

The growers market assembles Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Medford Armory, 1701 S. Pacific Highway.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007 at 11:53 am and is filed under The Whole Dish. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.