Snails!

[Guest guest]

Speaking of snails here are a couple of very recent wonderful!

articles on catching and eating brown garden snails. The first link

is to the main story. The second link is to the accompanying article

that talks about cleaning and cooking them. You may have to cut and

paste in the links. I've taken the liberty of pasting in the body of

the second article on preparing the snails below the links...

But be sure to read the first one. It's really fun and informative!

(The links may only be good for a few weeks...) ~Robin

Ps. I communicated with the author of both articles and she may be

joining one of the message boards soon. She was quite interested.

(So if you're out there Lyn, Welcome!!)

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?

f=/c/a/2005/04/16/HOGI6C7L431.DTL

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?

file=/c/a/2005/04/16/HOG23C7QJR1.DTL & type=printable

" Preparing Snails to Eat by Lynette , Saturday, April 16, 2005

San Francisco Chronicle Newspaper

Once the snails had been purged, I removed them to a covered plastic

bin and let them fast for two days, which ended my involvement in

the matter: I gather them and feed them; I don't clean or cook them.

That's my husband's job. It's called division of labor, a philosophy

I firmly believe in.

We had about four dozen snails. washed the snails three times

in cool water, changing the water between baths but not letting them

sit in the water long enough to drown.

In an 8-quart kettle, he put 1/2 cup vinegar and 1/2 cup salt and

filled the kettle with water. He brought the water to a boil, dumped

in the snails and cooked them for 5 minutes, than poured them into a

strainer and rinsed them in cold water. Doing this made the " foot "

of the snail fall away, although sometimes it must be pulled off.

With the sharp point of a paring knife, he pried the snail out of

the shell, making sure the digestive tract came with it. He cut off

the sac, then plunged the meat into a bowl of cold salted water.

When he'd finished dislodging all the snails from their shells and

cleaned the meat, he changed the water three times until it remained

clear. (You don't have to add salt after the first couple water

changes.)

(Larousse would have you remove only the cloaca, the black part at

the end of the tail, and leave the mantle with the liver and other

organs, calling that part the " most tasty and nutritious,'' but

cut back to the meat.)

Taking Rene Verdon's advice, sauteed the snail meat in butter

with minced French shallots and garlic (once the shallots and garlic

had softened, he added the drained snail meat and sauteed it for 5

minutes), then added a little good white wine and let it bubble up.

He strained the liquid off, then refrigerated the snails while he

cleaned the shells and prepared the snail butter. (Clean the shells

by washing them under running water and making sure that none of the

intestine is left in the shell. Let drain on a paper towel.)

He combined softened unsalted butter with finely chopped garlic,

parsley and chives, then chilled it until pliable but not hard.

Taking the prepared snail shell, he put a dab of snail butter into

the shell, then put one snail into the shell and packed some more

snail butter around the snail. He put the snails open side up in

stainless steel snail pans (but they can also be nestled into rock

salt -- to keep the snail from tipping over -- on a cookie sheet),

then put them under the broiler until the butter bubbled.

You'd be forever stuffing the smaller garden snails back into their

shells, so here's another way to use the meat. If you're going to

use your snails for hors d'oeuvres, or take them to a party (or to

The Chronicle newsroom, as did), clean and stem a couple dozen

small button mushrooms. Stuff them with the smaller snails and cover

them with garlic-parsley butter, then microwave them for 3 minutes.

Ditto the stuffed snails, which can be eaten off toothpicks,

although they're better with chunks of French bread to sop up the

snail butter (which, by the way, is the real reason for eating

snails). "