These are the snails we ate at my moms' birthday lunch party last January 14th. All our family LOVES Snails cooked any way! This recipe is soo easy that if you like snails, please have no doubt go ahead and cook it!Snails have a small corner in our family's memories and this is why I upload Snails, garlic and mint as one of the entries of the FOOD FOR THOUGHT Event that Erin is having at her Skinny Gourmet. Please drop by and take part in the event or see what we all come up with!
When we were small kids, my parents had a small tiny house in the country side for the weekends. It was great to change buildings and noise and cars for woods and butterflies and freesh air! We could play with mud... buagghhhh! Play hide-and-seek in the forest, fish small frogs in a creek and go for snail hunting at night or after it rained! Snail hunting was one of my favourites. My brother and I (2 years and a half younger than I) would dress in our rain coats and plastic boots and would have one flashlight each and a bag and start the search with my parents. It was soooo exciting that when I smell snails cooking or when I go outside during a rainy day and the earth has that wonderful wet smell, memories immediately come back to my head so brightly!
We would pick as many as we saw hidden in the back of the leaves or in the fennel springs or even in the middle of the path, they would try to escape of the bag and we would push their slimy bodies back to the bottom.
Once back home, my mom would put them inside a big holes strainer and add some flour, covered them and leave them in a fresh place for a week or two so that they would clean their guts with the flour. One of the snails though was "pardoned" by my brother whom would sing a song to the snail until it showed its horns. The word Patience was invented being inspired in my brother... he could sing the song for hours, 2 inches away from the snail's shell. The translation of the kids song would go this way, more or less:
Snail show your horns, climb up the mountain,
Snail show wine, climb up the little hill. Snail show your horns, climb up the mountain, Bubé Snail I'll come with you!
Special dressing: Me singning the song in catalan (top hit! he, he, he)
Ingredients for 6 servings: 2 Kg. of snails (Bubé kind), 3 fresh mint springs, olive oil, 2 garlic heads, some salt, and a pinch of black pepper.
Have a big saucepan with low heat and some olive oil and 2 mint springs, add the alive snails previously cleaned (inside and outside) when the oil is still cold. The snails will try to escape... I feel sad for them, but this is the way to cook them. Cover the saucepan so that they can not leave it and wait for 1 minute while you stir and cover.
You will see that they throw out a lot of dribble, that's ok, they must be cooked in their own juices. Keep on stirring and when you get to see the oil back in the bottom of the pan, add the 2 garlic heads (previously peeled and smashed) and stir. Cook it for 45 to 60 minutes at low heat. Add some salt if you wish and black pepper just 2 minutes before the dish is done.
Ready to eat!
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