Snail & shrimp pilaf

Snails belong to about 100 species from different locations around the world.

The Helix is a genus (family) of large air-breathing land snail native to Europe and the regions around the Mediterranean Sea. Used as a source of food, in general a snail is 15% protein, 2.4% fat and about 80% water, snails are also known by their French name; escargots.

One of the tastiest types is the small land snail. Other than the many recipes for conch and abalone - also snails - one way to incorporate snails in a dish is to make braised rice, such as a pilaf or a French or Italian risotto.

Once a specialty of Persian cuisine, pilaf is a dish made from rice or wheat boiled in a seasoned liquid in which meat or fish has been cooked.

You can make from scratch with fresh snails but the preparation is very time consuming. For our restaurant in Italy, we would gather the snails from growing artichokes and process them in and out of water over a five day period before beginning cooking. Nowadays a quick trip to the supermarket bags a tin of snails all ready-to-go. For the following recipe no snail shells are used, but if you buy them as a set hold on to the shells for another preparation. Snails prepared in a Court Bouillon are even better!

Although there are over 40,000 types of rice, mostly you will use one of five; converted par-boiled basic rice, white short grain Arborio for Italian risotto or sushi, long-grain types such as Basmati, or brown unrefined with the bran and germ still intact. Or perhaps Wild rice which is really an aquatic grass.

To make a snail and shrimp pilaf, you will need to saut 12 raw shell-on shrimps in 1 Tbsp sunflower oil for 2 minutes, remove from the pan and set aside. Into the same oil put 1 medium sized finely chopped yellow onion and 3 cloves of garlic plus 1 Tbsp olive oil and 1 Tbsp salt-free butter and saut for 5-7 minutes until the onion starts to caramelize, add 1 tspn paprika, stir. Add in cup short grain rice without wetting the grains and stir slowly for 5 minutes more until the grains become translucent and then turn a milky white. This will prevent the grains from sticking together. Add 1 small glass dry vermouth (optional), 1 cup chicken stock, 1 Tbsp chopped parsley, salt, pepper, a bouquet garni and cook covered on low heat for 12-15 minutes.

Remove from the heat. Discard shells and heads from shrimps, drain the snails and add along with shrimps to the rice, let the pilaf rest for 5 minutes with the lid on but with the pan off the heat. Remove the pan lid and fluff up the rice a little with a fork. Serve.

On another occasion to make use of the snail shells, use 24 snails (previously cooked in court bouillon). Mix together 100 g of goat cheese, or Greek feta cheese, 20 g of butter, 2 cloves of garlic (finely chopped), 1 Tbsp chopped parsley, and salt if needed. Put a snail into each shell, spoon the cheese mix on top and put the filled shells into a snail pan standing them up to prevent the filling from running out, or into an oven-proof dish containing just enough course salt to support the shells - crumpled foil works too. Bake in the oven at 200C for 7-10 minutes and serve with thick slices of bread. Use forks small enough to hook the snails out, catching the butter/oil on the bread. Take care as the butter will be very hot. Have a glass of a rich red wine ready to hand.

NB. Court-Bouillon is a mixture of white wine with double the amount of water to which has been added parsley, thyme, bay leaf, onion/shallot, garlic, ground cloves, a touch of mint and seasoning.

(HK Edition 10/08/2011 page4)