Before delving deeper into the question of how to cook snails, it would be nice to imagine what you have to deal with. After all, these are rather unusual inhabitants of green shrubs and ponds. Snails differ in body structure, shell shape, as well as their gastronomic features.
This food is unusual for the inhabitants of Russia, although many peoples have long eat snails, enjoying their taste and the beneficial properties of dietary meat. Not everyone can take the risk of trying a snail, but those who have tried have never regretted it yet.
Who are snails and what is their way of life
A snail is a mollusk that has a hard outer shell; it belongs to the class of gastropods. The body of the mollusk consists of a head, leg and an internal sac. Snails move with the help of their legs, which tend to contract. Leg for a better glide on various surfaces emits a lot of mucus. The snail shell is twisted in a spiral, inside it there is an internal sac.
Separately, it should be noted the beneficial properties of mucus secreted by snails. It is a kind of antiseptic, has healing and regenerative properties. It is used for the fastest healing of wounds and cuts. The miraculous properties have not yet been fully studied, but they are an undeniable potential for the treatment of diseases in the future. Incredibly, a snail can completely repair a destroyed shell with mucus.
Shellfish usually live in small groups, preferring to crawl out to feed in the dead of night, when no one sees them and they are relatively safe. They mainly eat plants, leaves, young shoots, but do not disdain with small worms, can be fed by larvae and other representatives of small insects.
The snail's marital relations also take place at night. Moreover, they do not have a separation between male and female, all snails are capable of reproduction. Using mucus, the partners attach to each other and mate. Snails breed rapidly, laying many eggs.
Often snails become a big and intrusive problem for gardeners and gardeners. Gathering in groups, they destroy the young shoots of plants of domestic crops. For example, grape snails can eat a huge amount of grape leaves and destroy the vineyard in just a few days.
It is difficult to fight them because of their lightning fast reproduction. There is nothing left to do except prepare grape snails.
As the main ingredient of snails, French, Spaniards and Italians use it, considering them a delicacy. But in our country, you can eat these little pests, just catch more gastropods and figure out how to cook grape snails.
Useful properties of cooked snail meat
Snail meat is rich in protein and B vitamins, so it is an easily digestible product and is suitable for dietary nutrition. No matter how to cook the snails, their meat will still contain beneficial amino acids.
In addition, it contains trace elements: calcium, magnesium and iron.
By taste, the product is quite specific, but still tasty. Snail meat is soft, but at the same time resilient. It goes well with dry white wine, champagne, but is also suitable for beer.
In some countries (for example, in the Czech Republic) there are many farms that specialize in breeding snails. In a special territory, conditions are created for providing mollusks with food, as well as protection from predators.
Clam species
So, what varieties of snails exist and are they all suitable for cooking? The grape snails are considered the most delicious. They have been eaten since ancient times by both rich people and poor people. They were not a delicacy, but were a natural food for all segments of the population. In order to eat snails, you did not need to have a lot of money. People simply caught them in the bush, salted and cooked at the stake, after which they enjoyed the excellent taste of dietary meat saturated with protein.
Experienced "snail eaters" usually do not give advice on how to cook Achatina snails, because even in Africa, the country of origin of these mollusks, they are very rarely eaten. They are large in size, are land-sized and can reach the size of a human palm. Their meat is tough and tasteless, so Achatina are more suitable for breeding as an exotic pet than for eating.
A garden snail is also suitable for food, different from the grape color and shell shape, size and habitat. Garden snail can be found in Russia mainly in forest areas in thickets of shrubs. In cities, they are quite rare.
There are snails that live in rivers, they have a darker shell color. Catching them is a little harder - these are river snails. How to cook them or ground snails, there is no fundamental difference.
How to eat snails
This delicacy is eaten with the help of special devices: escarged tweezers - special tongs for firmly holding the sink, a thin fork with flat teeth for meat extraction. The snail is eaten whole without cutting it into pieces. It is permissible to carefully drink the juice formed from the sink. After all, before cooking snails, cooks often put in a sink a mixture of butter, garlic and herbs, which gives a unique taste to the dish.
Cleansing the ventricles of snails with a diet
Before preparing garden snails, or any other, it is necessary to clean their stomachs, planting on a special diet.
To do this, they should be placed in a small container (bowl, pan), from which they could not crawl out, after pouring a little flour on the bottom. For 1 kg of snails, no more than 2 tablespoons are needed. This treat will cleanse the snails from the inside, after which their meat will get rid of a specific smell and unpleasant aftertaste, and acquire excellent taste.
On the first day, the snails are given the specified flour, on the second day its amount is halved. On the third day, snails are not fed. It is necessary to periodically spray the mollusks with water so that they do not die, because for cooking they are needed alive.
After this, the snails must be thoroughly washed and the sinks cleaned with a brush (you can use an unnecessary toothbrush).
Removing excess mucus with salt
The next step, before cooking snails at home, is to remove mucus from them. For this, the washed mollusks are placed in a basin, the bottom of which is sprinkled with a thin layer of salt, for two hours. Snails will begin to liberate mucus profusely. After this, rinse them again with cold water. Now they are ready directly for cooking.
Many delicacies are prepared from snails: soup, caviar seasoned with spicy sauce, stuffed snails, stewed in garlic sauce, baked in an oven with basil and much more. But how to cook grape snails at home without using the complex professional equipment that any experienced chef is accustomed to without inventing complicated recipes? Simply fry or boil the clams, prepare the sauce and enjoy the delicacy.
Cooking fried snails
There is nothing complicated in how to cook snails correctly. They can be fried in an ordinary frying pan. First you need to sprinkle the clams with salt and pepper. Add a little vegetable and butter, a few milliliters of dry white wine, place the snails there. Then fry under the lid for 5-7 minutes.
That's all, the fried snails are ready to eat. The meat is surprisingly soft and tender. Snails should not be overexposed on fire, they do not require long heat treatment.
Fried Snails: The Second Way
Before cooking live grape snails, you need to ram in the shells a special oil garlic sauce, which will add a piquant taste and aroma. To prepare it, you need to mix soft butter, your favorite greens (parsley, mint, basil), finely chopped garlic in arbitrary proportions.
Stuff the shells with this mixture and send them to the pan, be sure to lay the shell down.
Cooked and Lightly Toasted Snails
Another way to cook grape snails at home is to pre- cook them before frying in a pan. After boiling water in a saucepan, lower the snails there and cook for no more than 5 minutes, and preferably 3 minutes. Fry in butter for 3-4 minutes under a closed lid.
Meat prepared in this way will also be softer but more resilient. This is a wonderful appetizer, as well as an independent dish that goes well with dry wine.
How to cook snails on the grill or in the barbecue
The most delicious are snails prepared on the grill. Smoke gives the meat a slightly smoked flavor, making it more aromatic. For cooking snails on the grill no special preparations are needed.
Pre-salted and pepper snails are placed on the grill with the holes up, after which they are fried over a fire for 7 minutes. During the frying process, you can water the snails with lard, chopped onto a skewer and melted over the coals.
Do not be scared when the snails start to “hiss” unpleasantly under the influence of temperature - this is normal, the excess moisture just goes away.
Snail meat is especially tasty when dipped in sauce. Any greens, garlic, mayonnaise, sour cream, soy sauce, butter, dry wine goes well with it.
Whatever method was chosen for cooking snails, it is necessary to remember an important rule: do not overexpose them on fire, because of this meat can become tough and not so tasty. And although not everyone in our country is ready for such taste experiments, but for those who have managed to appreciate snail dishes, this is the best delicacy and delicacy.