Ingredients
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12 Escargotsdrained, washed
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12 marble potatoescooked al dente
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10 grams shallotsfinely diced
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5 grams garlic clovefinely chopped
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10 millilitres Pernodalternatively Ricard or Pastis
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10 millilitres dry white wine
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20 millilitres virgin olive oil
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pepper from the mill
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sea salt flakes
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Escargot butter - yield 2 cups
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240 grams Buttersoft
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1 egg yolk
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15 grams garlic clovefinely chopped
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6 grams chivesfinely chopped
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30 grams shallotsfinely chopped
Directions
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 Ricard 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.
- Cut the bottom and top part of the potatoes off. With a potato baler scoop out a sizable 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
- Saute the chopped garlic and shallots in virgin olive oil, add the snails, season them with salt and pepper and flambe 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.
