Burgundy snails are a famous delicacy that is very popular in many countries of the world. The ancient Greeks became the first to use these cephalopods as food. Today they are the main suppliers of these rare animals to different countries of Southeast and Central Europe.
Classic version
Today, "Burgundy snails" are considered one of the main traditional dishes of French cuisine. There are various options for its preparation. The easiest way requires the following required ingredients:
- 36 canned snails require 250 grams of butter, ground black pepper, 4 cloves of garlic, 2 stalks of shallots, 4 tablespoons of chopped parsley and a little salt.
In order to cook such a dish as “Burgundy snails”, you need some skill:
- First, they must be washed in cold water, and then carefully laid out on a paper towel.
- After drying, remove meat from each sink. The black clot at the end must be cut off.
- The sinks themselves should be thoroughly washed and dried.
- Butter must first be slightly softened, and then the crushed ingredients provided for in the recipe should be added to it. The amount of salt and pepper is taken to taste.
- Add snail meat to the resulting mass.
- Stuffed shells with the prepared mixture .
- Fold them in a form and send to the oven for 7 minutes.
This time is enough for the aromatic oily mixture to bake well.
Boiled clam meat
Burgundy snails always cook the same way. The difference is only in the composition of the filling, which is used for stuffing. One way provides the following set of products:
- 0.6 kilograms of boiled snail meat 30 grams of onions, 100 grams of grated cheese, 40 grams of butter, 2 cloves of garlic, 15 grams of parsley, 50 grams of breadcrumbs and black ground pepper on the tip of a knife.
In this case, it all starts with a plate:
- First you need to boil the snails.
- Then you should remove the meat from them, and boil the shells for half an hour in a soda solution. After that, they need to be doused with cold water and dried.
- To prepare the filling, the first thing to do is grind all the ingredients. This is best done with a sharp knife.
- Next, spasser the onion in oil, and then alternately add the remaining products to it.
- Add a little broth in which the snails were cooked in the finished mixture. The remaining liquid must be boiled until thickened.
- Inside each sink, pour a little broth, put a piece of boiled meat and cover with cooked filling on top.
Stuffed preparations should be baked in the oven for 15 minutes, until the mixture inside the sink is covered with a golden brown.
Mandatory conditions
To get the desired result, you need to clearly know how to cook grape snails. To begin with, it should be noted that mollusks must undergo preliminary processing.
This is a fairly lengthy process, but without it cephalopods are better not to use as food. The only way out is frozen or canned snails. They are usually sold in special sealed packaging. There are over a hundred different options for making grape snails. But all of them can be combined in four main ways. These are: snails fried on a lattice (grill) stuffed with aromatic oil, baked in sauce and cooked in a burning cognac. Each method is good in its own way, so it all depends on the individual taste. The main rule is that cooked shellfish should be eaten only when hot. After cooling, their meat not only loses taste, but also becomes quite tough in addition. Such a dish will not please anyone.
Main recipes
In France, there are two main regions where the largest snails are found. The recipe for their preparation is called by the name of the area: Alsace and Burgundy. The essence of the method in both cases usually boils down to the following actions:
- Shells are first processed.
- Then the mollusks are removed from the shells.
- Sinks are thoroughly cleaned.
- After this, the meat of the gastropod is placed back into the house along with a pre-cooked filling.
- The design is baked in the oven at high temperature.
If everything is done correctly, then the result will be very tender real French snails. The recipe usually contains a set of fragrant herbs that help tint the unusual taste of the clam fillet soaked in aromatic oil. As a mandatory complement to such a dish, you need to serve a good white wine. Moreover, it does not have to be expensive. It can even be ordinary young wine. The main thing is that the taste is pleasant to the one who will drink it.
Shellfish with vegetable filling
From the variety of options, each cook himself chooses the way that he likes to cook the delicacy of "Burgundy snails." The recipe may contain the following ingredients:
- 150 grams of snails 4 tablespoons of flour, a glass of apple cider vinegar, 200 grams of carrots, a liter of white wine, 300 grams of onions, 4 cloves of garlic, half a kilogram of butter, a little salt, fresh parsley and thyme.
With this set of components, the following technology must be observed:
- Boil the snails in salted water for 6 minutes, and then wash and dry well.
- Carefully remove the meat, put it in a clean container and pour water with wine.
- Crumble vegetables with herbs and add to oil. To prepare a homogeneous mixture, it is better to use a blender.
- Finely chop the snail meat. Pieces should be of medium size.
- Fill the washed sinks with meat. Fill the rest of the space with prepared oil.
Before serving, the snails must be put in the oven for 5-10 minutes. The temperature inside the chamber should be at least 200-220 degrees.
Tastes differ
Nowadays, not everyone has had the chance to try the delicacy of “snails in Burgundy”. The reviews of those lucky ones who still could afford it only confirm the opinion that each person has his own taste.
People who are not used to seafood delicacies are unlikely to appreciate such an exotic dish. Indeed, for Russians, mollusks were never considered food. It is this circumstance that makes many cautiously treat an unfamiliar product. But lovers of experiments can gladly satisfy their curiosity. Moreover, now such a frozen dish is made by seafood processing companies. Before using them, you just need to briefly send them to the microwave or oven. Some believe that the taste of such mollusks resembles a cross between mushrooms and mussels. Nevertheless, there are practically no negative reviews, with the exception of those for whom it is purely psychologically difficult to eat a snail.
Fragrant Additive
Sometimes famous snails are cooked without shells. With this method, the dish consists of two main components: clam fillet and dressing. The sauce for "Burgundy snails" in this case (based on 25 shellfish without houses) can be prepared from the following products:
- 100 grams of butter, 3 cloves of garlic, 50 grams of Parmesan cheese, salt, nutmeg and parsley (at your discretion).
Then the whole process comes down to the following steps:
- Mix the softened butter with chopped garlic, salt, nutmeg and chopped herbs.
- Put the meat of snails in special forms.
- Then cover it with a layer of cooked aromatic mass.
- Sprinkle grated cheese on top.
- Put the mold in the oven for 10 minutes.
Before eating, you need to make sure that there is good white wine on the table and there is a loaf of fresh French baguette. Without these important additions, even properly prepared sauce will not give the desired result. You can achieve the perfect taste only if you have all the necessary ingredients.
Do it yourself
If you want to do the whole cooking procedure yourself from start to finish, you need to clearly understand how there are snails in Burgundy at home, and what you need to do to do this. The first thing to consider is that these mollusks eat even plants that are harmful to humans during their lifetime. Therefore, immediately after collection, they can not be eaten. Snails have to “fast” for some time. To do this, they must be placed in a pan, pouring a little flour to the bottom as a meal. After 10 days, shells with clams need to be removed and held for a couple of hours in a separate container filled with salt. This will help remove unwanted mucus. Then only you can begin to follow the selected recipe. There are two ways to bake snails:
- In a special form called “escargot”. The name comes from the French word “escargo”, which means “grape snail”.
- On a baking sheet sprinkled with salt and covered with foil.
Ready-made snails are served to the table in portions in separate shallow plates. For food, a special small fork with two teeth, a skewer or an ordinary toothpick is usually used. Each piece should be washed down with white wine. And with a bite, you can dip the baguette crumb into the oil with vegetables and herbs.