Food Wine Sleep

Ingredients List

10ml (1/3 fl oz) Pernod, Riccard, or alternatively Pastis
20 ml (2/3 fl oz) virgin olive oil
Sea salt
Pepper from the mill
For the Escargot butter (yields approx. 2 cups for about 4-5 doz. of snails)
210 g (7 oz) unsalted butter, soft
30 g (1 oz) shallots, chopped very fine
15 g ( 12 oz) garlic, finely chopped
6 g (1/5 oz) chive, finely chopped
2 pc anchovies, rinsed and finely chopped
6 g (1/5 oz) thyme, tarragon, chervil and basil, finely chopped
20 g flat (Italian) parsley, finely chopped
20 g (12 oz) fresh bread crumbs
1 Egg yolk
Sea salt
Pepper from the mill

Recipe Description

Snails/escargots are the sort of delicacy people either love, crave for and adore or simply do not like and are quite appalled by it. In any case, the snails one usually buys come in a tin or jar and are already washed, purged and ready for the final cooking. I like to sautee the snails and flavor them with a little Pastis or Riccard before baking them with the butter. The recipe for the 'Escargots butter', just as the 'Cafe de Paris' butter is the sort of recipe that makes the 'house specialty' the very sort of thing. I guess the whole secrecy stems from the fact, that especially with escargots, the butter is the most important ingredient, as the snails itself are rather bland and tasteless. So, given that there are thousands of Bistro's in France and all of them used to serve snails, the recipe for the best snail butter really needs to be a chefs signature and it is the chef's pride to have the potentially best recipe for it. There are great variations of this dish, with reduced red wine, creamy Brie or Roquefort cheese, with curry and many more.

Method Description

Cut the bottom and top part of the potatoes off. With a potato baller scoop out a sizeable hole into the one side of the potato. Set aside in a buttered oven proof dish.
For the butter, whisk the soft butter slightly foamy, add all the ingredients and season to taste
Sautee the chopped garlic and shallots in virgin olive oil, add the snails, season them with salt and pepper and flambee the snails with the Pernod.
Add the white wine and simmer for just a minute while reducing the the liquid until it just coats the snails. Remove from the pan and place the snail into the prepared new potatoes. Moisten with the liquid remaining in the pan.
Cover snail with a generous dollop of the butter and bake in the oven, by 220 C until well gratinated and heated through.
Serve at once.