FINDING YOUR SNAILS
Snails are nocturnal, and like places which are dark and damp.
In spring and autumn they are most active, destructive and edible.
When it’s dry or cold they seal themselves up, they hibernate in winter, and aestivate in summer. After being closed up for long they have less fat, but are still edible.
The French used to collect them in autumn, when they have recently gone into hibernation (dormant). At this time they're still fat. They are then already naturally purged and safe inside their shells. This is easiest time to simply collect and cook snails. It is a good shortcut, avoiding the need to fatten them up and dry or purge them.
To see check if a snail is mature, not growing any more, feel the outer, front edge of the of the shell opening. If it has a hard lip it has finished growing, if it's a bit soft, and less prominent, it is an immature one, leave it to grow up!
BEFORE COOKING THEM
If you collect them while they're active, not hibernating or aestivating, then you need to prepare them. Provide them with a home like a bucket or washing up bowl for about a week, (see slideshow) where you can give them food and water, exclude soil and grit, and crucially, keep them in. They are good escapologists! An old pair of tights makes a good cover for a bucket. A softwood box is good. It is important to provide plenty of ventilation.
Feed them with human-friendly vegetarian food for a week or more, to clear out any grit in their guts and fattens them up a bit. Lettuce, onion greens, apples are things they love, stale bread, bran and sunflower seeds are good. If you keep them for more than a week you must give them powdered lime, from a garden centre or builders merchant if you want a sack!
PURGING
Before cooking they are purged, that means no food or water for 48 hours, so their guts empty and their close up in their shells with a membrane protecting them. They are washed thoroughly before this stage, and after.
Take the snails out carefully from the home they were feeding in to another container like a colander, wash them well, two or three times. Then put them in the purging bucket for 48 hours. you can use the same bucket, but might need help to prevent escapes while you take everything out of the bucket, wash and dry it and just return what you used for their shelter, but no food or water. Stones or broken flowerpot or crockery or wood will give them something to hold onto.
Commercially they just hang them in nets for up to a fortnight. Make sure they are well secured with the tights or a secure lid which allows air exchange.
Monday, March 23, 2009
COOKING
COOKING is in 3 stages:
1 Killing: they must be right inside their shells, if not, disturb them by gently shaking the container. Plunge them into boiling water for two - five mins.
2 Then cool them in cold water, and extract them carefully from their shells with a toothpick or pin.
3 Then they are cooked for an hour or so in good tasty stock. The French always include wine. See below
4 Then they are baked with butter and flavourings. This is because they are quite low in fat, and flavour.
5 Serve with bread.
Serving them in their shells requires two extra stages:--
6 Cleaning and drying the shells, see below
7 Putting the snail into the shells with butter sauce, then baking.
THE STOCK cook up for ½ hour or so. This was used on the One Show, a court bouillon or your own stock recipe is fine.
Then add the snails, after removal from shells.
1 lt water
generous handfuls of fresh:
water parsnip leaves
wild sorrel
nettle tips
Some welsh onion/garlic
Carrot
Ramsons (wild garlic)
Thyme, basil,
Peppercorns
Bay leaf
salt
½ bottle of Chardonnay.
SNAILS IN ALMONDS
To melted butter, add garlic cloves
Then ground almonds to make a soft paste.
Put a snail in each hollow of a snail plate and add as much paste as possible.
Bake for 20 mins.
Serve with cubes of bread and salad.
SNAILS IN WILD HERBS
Using a good book, collect seasonal weeds. For the One Show in April, I used those below.
Wash and chop finely, then
Blanch for 5 mins the wild herbs you can lay your hands on.
I used the following:
Water parsnip
Wild sorrel
Water cress
Nettle tips
A little ribwort plantain.
Sieve , pressing out the water.
Finely chopped ramsons
(if in season, otherwise use onion or garlic with the blanched herbs)
Add all these to melted butter.
Put a snail in each hollow of a snail plate and add as much paste as possible.
Bake for 20 mins.
Serve with cubes of bread and salad.
An old French recipe:
“To dress snails:
Put some water into a saucepan, and when it begins to boil throw in the snails, and let them boild a quarter of an hour; then take them out of their shells; wash them several times, taking great pains to cleanse them thoroughly, place them in clean water and boil them again for a quarter of an hour; then take them out, rinse them, dry them, and place them with a little butter in a frying pan, fry them gently for a few minutes, sufficient to brown them, then serve them with some piquant sauce.”
From “Edible Molluscs from great Britain and Ireland” by M S Lovell, a, PDF book that I downloaded from www.EatWeeds.co.uk pages 23 – 27.
1 Killing: they must be right inside their shells, if not, disturb them by gently shaking the container. Plunge them into boiling water for two - five mins.
2 Then cool them in cold water, and extract them carefully from their shells with a toothpick or pin.
3 Then they are cooked for an hour or so in good tasty stock. The French always include wine. See below
4 Then they are baked with butter and flavourings. This is because they are quite low in fat, and flavour.
5 Serve with bread.
Serving them in their shells requires two extra stages:--
6 Cleaning and drying the shells, see below
7 Putting the snail into the shells with butter sauce, then baking.
THE STOCK cook up for ½ hour or so. This was used on the One Show, a court bouillon or your own stock recipe is fine.
Then add the snails, after removal from shells.
1 lt water
generous handfuls of fresh:
water parsnip leaves
wild sorrel
nettle tips
Some welsh onion/garlic
Carrot
Ramsons (wild garlic)
Thyme, basil,
Peppercorns
Bay leaf
salt
½ bottle of Chardonnay.
SNAILS IN ALMONDS
To melted butter, add garlic cloves
Then ground almonds to make a soft paste.
Put a snail in each hollow of a snail plate and add as much paste as possible.
Bake for 20 mins.
Serve with cubes of bread and salad.
SNAILS IN WILD HERBS
Using a good book, collect seasonal weeds. For the One Show in April, I used those below.
Wash and chop finely, then
Blanch for 5 mins the wild herbs you can lay your hands on.
I used the following:
Water parsnip
Wild sorrel
Water cress
Nettle tips
A little ribwort plantain.
Sieve , pressing out the water.
Finely chopped ramsons
(if in season, otherwise use onion or garlic with the blanched herbs)
Add all these to melted butter.
Put a snail in each hollow of a snail plate and add as much paste as possible.
Bake for 20 mins.
Serve with cubes of bread and salad.
An old French recipe:
“To dress snails:
Put some water into a saucepan, and when it begins to boil throw in the snails, and let them boild a quarter of an hour; then take them out of their shells; wash them several times, taking great pains to cleanse them thoroughly, place them in clean water and boil them again for a quarter of an hour; then take them out, rinse them, dry them, and place them with a little butter in a frying pan, fry them gently for a few minutes, sufficient to brown them, then serve them with some piquant sauce.”
From “Edible Molluscs from great Britain and Ireland” by M S Lovell, a, PDF book that I downloaded from www.EatWeeds.co.uk pages 23 – 27.
Serving in Shells & Eating Weeds
TO SERVE IN SHELLS
Wash the empty shells carefully in water with soda added,
Do this three times. Then drain as well as you can.
Put in the oven on a baking tray to dry thoroughly.
Try to match large snails with large shells.
Using a small teaspoon, put a bit of the butter mix into the shell
Then push a snail in, then fill to the top with butter mix.
If you have snail plates, arrange them in the dips.
Special plates not necessary though, you can stand them close together so the opening is upright and the fillings don’t fall out.
Either way, bake for 20 minutes and serve with bread and salad.
WEEDS AS FOOD
Organically grown food is more nutritious and better for us than that which is grown with a lot of pesticides and fertilizer. Wild food is even better. A handful of fresh chopped nettle tips gives a pasta sauce a really satisfying richness. They have much higher proportions of minerals than spinach, and higher protein content than meat.
If you can dry some too, you can use them through the winter.
Many other weeds are good to eat too.
Wash the empty shells carefully in water with soda added,
Do this three times. Then drain as well as you can.
Put in the oven on a baking tray to dry thoroughly.
Try to match large snails with large shells.
Using a small teaspoon, put a bit of the butter mix into the shell
Then push a snail in, then fill to the top with butter mix.
If you have snail plates, arrange them in the dips.
Special plates not necessary though, you can stand them close together so the opening is upright and the fillings don’t fall out.
Either way, bake for 20 minutes and serve with bread and salad.
WEEDS AS FOOD
Organically grown food is more nutritious and better for us than that which is grown with a lot of pesticides and fertilizer. Wild food is even better. A handful of fresh chopped nettle tips gives a pasta sauce a really satisfying richness. They have much higher proportions of minerals than spinach, and higher protein content than meat.
If you can dry some too, you can use them through the winter.
Many other weeds are good to eat too.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
More on keeping snails:
There are no books currently available, publishers contact me, and I will write a lovely one with great photos.
Buying ready to cook snails:
http://www.thefatgoose.co.uk/2-dozen-burgundy-snails--24-empty-snail-shells-393-p.asp
http://sloweb.slowfood.it/sloweb/ita/dettaglio.lasso?cod=3E6E345C1b96d1DC54UOY3599059 from Italy.
On eating weeds and their nutritional value, follow these links:
http://www.prodigalgardens.info/Nutritional%20Analysis.htm From US, check her Articles link too.
There are no books currently available, publishers contact me, and I will write a lovely one with great photos.
Buying ready to cook snails:
http://www.thefatgoose.co.uk/2-dozen-burgundy-snails--24-empty-snail-shells-393-p.asp
http://sloweb.slowfood.it/sloweb/ita/dettaglio.lasso?cod=3E6E345C1b96d1DC54UOY3599059 from Italy.
On eating weeds and their nutritional value, follow these links:
http://www.prodigalgardens.info/Nutritional%20Analysis.htm From US, check her Articles link too.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
BREEDING
If you want to eat garden snails regularly, then you should breed them.
A vivarium, a wooden box, bucket or washing bowl are suitable for snails to breed in, if outside, should be placed in full shade. Ideally they are kept at 20o C in damp air to breed, so in a greenhouse or coldframe is better. Spray water in the house to keep it damp. Where it’s warmer in Italy and France the whole life cycle is outdoors. They need good moist soil is a flowerpot or box to lay the eggs in.
Rodents and birds must be kept out.
They are hermaphrodites, but two must mate to breed. You can keep just two fine large specimens together in quite a small container. The eggs take three weeks to hatch if they’re kept at 20o C. In good conditions they are mature and ready to eat after 3 months of growing.
To grow they need lime to make their shells, so for keeping snails long term, it is important to provide lime. Crushed oyster shell is suitable, but I think powdered lime is best, available from garden centres, or cheaper is a sack from a builders merchant. It's good for the soil when growing vegetables too.
They can produce 100s of young, so a bigger house is necessary for them to grow up in. I have an old cracked aquarium, but an enclosed space can be made with special snail netting. I could only find it in rolls. I will buy a roll, and sell shorter lengths to any of you who would like some.
In theory ( I haven't personally done this yet) it is possible to produce edible mature snails by autumn or late summer from a pair put together in the spring. I have paired two up, and wait in hope!
A vivarium, a wooden box, bucket or washing bowl are suitable for snails to breed in, if outside, should be placed in full shade. Ideally they are kept at 20o C in damp air to breed, so in a greenhouse or coldframe is better. Spray water in the house to keep it damp. Where it’s warmer in Italy and France the whole life cycle is outdoors. They need good moist soil is a flowerpot or box to lay the eggs in.
Rodents and birds must be kept out.
They are hermaphrodites, but two must mate to breed. You can keep just two fine large specimens together in quite a small container. The eggs take three weeks to hatch if they’re kept at 20o C. In good conditions they are mature and ready to eat after 3 months of growing.
To grow they need lime to make their shells, so for keeping snails long term, it is important to provide lime. Crushed oyster shell is suitable, but I think powdered lime is best, available from garden centres, or cheaper is a sack from a builders merchant. It's good for the soil when growing vegetables too.
They can produce 100s of young, so a bigger house is necessary for them to grow up in. I have an old cracked aquarium, but an enclosed space can be made with special snail netting. I could only find it in rolls. I will buy a roll, and sell shorter lengths to any of you who would like some.
In theory ( I haven't personally done this yet) it is possible to produce edible mature snails by autumn or late summer from a pair put together in the spring. I have paired two up, and wait in hope!
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