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Showing posts with label snails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label snails. Show all posts

Snails with Bacon and Mushrooms. A Fall's tapa!


Can you imagine these special fall flavours all combined in a Tapa? Mmmmm, Snails are absolutely delicious cooked this way. Eating snails also has a special Bonus... you can eat them with your fingers! It's one of those special foods where using the fingers doesn't mean bad manners. Although, Julia Roberts' character at Pretty Woman had a little problem with a snail (escargot)... remember that scene?

Hunting Snails and mushrooms is an extended activity here in Catalonia. When Fall starts showing its nose, hundreds of Mushrooms hunters head to the woods and try to fill their baskets with as many mushrooms as they can. We are lucky enough to have many many different kinds of mushrooms; if you are curious, here you can see the ones we have in Catalonia. (sorry, only in Catalan, but with pictures for every kind).

One of my favourite mushrooms is Cep (Boletus Edulis) a supertasty and flavourful one. If you have the chance,  try it. You can find them at the markets now, but also frozen, dehydrated and in cans. My recommendation is that if you find it fresh... go ahead and buy it!

Ingredients for the Tapa: 250 grs of snails, 50 grs of Boletus Edulis, 80 grs. of fresh panceta, 1 big onion, 3 garlic cloves, 2 branches of fresh thyme, salt, olive oil and black ground pepper.

  • First clean, wash and boil the snails as said in this post.
  • Now, cover the surface of a pan with olive oil, when hot, add the panceta in dices. When golden, add the boiled snails (only the snails, not the water you used) and stir for 8 minutes at medium heat. Sprinkle with salt and black ground pepper. 
  • Take the snails and panceta out of the pan and reserve in a plate.
  • In the same oil, cook the onion (chopped) until it gets transparent. Add a branch of thyme. Stir and pull it out after 3 minutes.
  • Add the Boletus cut in dices to the pan with the onion. Stir for 3 more minutes at medium heat.
  • Pour the snails and panceta back to the pan and cook for 20 minutes aprox at medium/low heat. Stir now and then.
  • Mince the garlic, add to the snails and turn the heat off when fragant.
Get a good loaf of bread ready and eat warm/hot!
If you are a snail addict like me, then click at the snails picture at the right column. Buen provecho :D



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MY CITY: BARCELONA. MY OBSESSION: FOOD. MY FAIRY GODMOTHER: VICTORIA ALLMAN

This is not a story about the Titanic... but it could be! Not that I sinked at the end... just sooo exciting.

This is not a story about the Love Boat... but it could be! If only we had left the port behind... one never knows!
This is not a story about the Nautillus... I didn't meet a mysterious Captain Nemo... just a blue eyed young Captain!
This is my story about how I ended up in a Luxury Boat teaching how to make Spanish Paella and some Garlicky Snails to the Yacht's Chef!!! Want to know all about it?
A month ago, Victoria, my personal Fairy Godmother ;D, got in touch with me through my blog to know if I would agree on teaching her my tricks and tips about Paella. Who says no to Fairies? I said yes of course! I got sooooooo excited with the project :D!!!!! We chose a day and we thought it would be great to cook some garlicky snails and a Paella for 8 people... the Yacht crew. Victoria Allman is the Cocoa Bean's Chef and she also runs a blog: Following my stomach, please pay her a visit, she's got such an exciting life and recipes from around the world :D.
So, we went to la Boqueria and bought some fresh fish, seafood, veggies and rice and drove our way to Barcelona's Harbour (take a look at the video).
The Yacht is so impressive and beautiful. It's a 43 meters Boat with capability for 9 Crew and 12 Guests. The kitchen is not called a kitchen, it's a galley! I love learning new things :D. And it has 2 ovens, 6 stove tops, 3 huge fridges and 2 freezers!!!! Once it has all provisions on board it can be autonomous for one week. The Yacht also owns a power generator and a water maker.

Victoria is in charge of all menus: breakfast, lunch and dinner; the provisioning; baking the bread; desserts... She does a fantastic job in her tidy galley and has the best windows' views ever!
The paella came out beautifully and the Crew was delighted with this typical Spanish dish! I followed my Seafood Paella recipe and also made the Garlicky Snails as a starter. Follow the links to get detailed recipes with pictures.

If you want to try it yourself and buy the traditional paella pan, find it at La Tienda. Click on it!


It felt great to share experiences in the Boat's galley with Victoria. Please check her blog and meet the sweetest Chef on Board ;D. Thank you Victoria!!!! She is posting a twin post tomorrow... don't miss it :D.

The music of the video belongs to Estopa and it's a Catalan Rumba. You can get their music at Itunes :D

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Cargols & Conill i Romesco - Snails & Rabbit and Romesco sauce

In my house, a casserole dish always means healthy and comfort food. It also means slow cooking food, steamy windows, and the thing I like the most: Mom, is there anything left in the casserole? The answer should always be... Yes darling, go help yourself :D
Why is this a healthy and family favourite dish?

Here you have some of the main reasons: First, we love rabbit and snails (it's a catalan tradition to have both together in the same dish). Second, rabbit is one of the most healthy meats... it's white, non greasy, and very tasty (great for diets). Third, romesco is such a wonderful sauce... think about the ingredients: garlic, tomatoes, ñoras, hazelnuts and almonds, olive oil... what on earth could be healthier than that combo?
Why am I giving you all these health tips? Well, I'm sending the dish over to Meeta from What's for lunch honey? and her Monthly Mingle. Many dishes came to my mind for her Healthy Family meals, but Snails & Rabbit and Romesco Sauce won the first place!!! So, here you have it Meeta :D. The hostess for this month's event is Michelle from What's Cooking Blog.

Wouldn't you lick these snails and suck all the sauce in them? Well, we do! Wouldn't you use your bread to clean the plate? Well, we do! Wouldn't you use your fingers to eat the rabbit and snails and leave the plate with just the bones and shells, as if Tim Burton would use it for a new movie? Well... we do!!!
Really, you don't know how good is this dish if you don't try it!!! Just buy the Rioja wine, light some candles and get your beloved in front of you, open the bottle and have it for Valentines day... help the world population grow bigger :D :D :D.
Ingredients for 4 servings: 8 rabbit pieces + the liver, 1 kilo of fresh snails, 2 medium onions, 4 garlic cloves, 4 tablespoons of romesco sauce (home made is my choice), 1 guindilla (small red chili pepper), flour, salt, black ground pepper, 2 glass water and olive oil.

To cook the snails you will need: patience, some branches of thyme, half a garlic head, water and salt.

Buy the snails alive. Have them fasting for at least a week. Clean them throughout one by one and rubbing the shells under tap water. Put in a strainer and rinse them under water for several times. Have them in cold water and those that don't come out of the shell put in a recipient with hot water. Those not coming out of the shells should be discarded.

Prepare a deep big pot with cold water, the thyme and the garlic. Put the snails inside, cover with the lid and have at low heat. When the snails feel the heat will come out of their shells (this is the way to cheat them and have the bodies out of the shells to eat them easily). Once they are dead and the water starts boiling, take the foam away and add some salt. Boil for 20 minutes, strain and reserve.

Start the dish:
  • Get some olive oil in a big casserole, while it heats up, clean the rabbit, dry, add salt and pepper over it and coat in flour. Fry in the casserole's hot oil. Just at medium heat. Reserve when golden.
  • If the oil didn't get too dirty from the flour, add the two chopped onions and stir at low medium heat until they get some colour, then add the chopped garlic. Stir until fragrant add the chili and finally the snails. Stir at low heat for 10 minutes. If the oil was full of burnt flour, strain it and add some new one to start with the ingredients.
  • Get the rabbit back to the casserole and pour the 2 glasses of water over it. Shake the casserole and simmer with the lid on for 15 minutes.
  • Use the rabbit's liver now. Chop it and add to the casserole, stir and shake for a while until the liver is cooked. Cover with the lid for another 10 or 15 minutes. Stir now and then.
  • Add the romesco sauce and shake the casserole so that all ingredients mix. Have at low heat for another 5 minutes.
  • This dish is better the day after or if you cook it in the morning will be perfect for dinner. Enjoy!


Do you love Rabbit and Snails? Want more recipes?



Rabbit and Noodles casserole
Snails done in Garlic and Mint
Rice with Snails and Veggies

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Rice with Snails and veggies

This is one of my favourite dishes ever! Earthy ingredients for a magical result! Whenever a dish contains snails, rice and artichokes in it, be sure I will cook it in my kitchen.

In my family, we are all great snails predators... if my mother, or I find some fresh snails in the market... a family meeting is about to happen! 2 or 3 kilos will be devoured by 11 insatiable snails-eaters!

Lleida is one of the Catalan cities were snails have a very important part in their traditional gastronomy. There's a big Event going on every year considered a National Touristic Feast where 200.000 participants assist and 12 snail tones are cooked and eaten. This year they have celebrated the 29th edition. Click the left red icon for more info (only available in catalan, sorry about that)

There's many ways to cook them, see 3 other recipes here. And also in this blog in the near future: Snails "a la llauna", Rabbit and snails, Snails' brochette with Allioli...

Adding the snails to the rice casserole will give a herbs and forest flavour to this dish. Mmmmm! I bought this ones to a couple of farmers whom assured me that the snails were from a field of their own where Rosemary and Fennel were the predominant herbs.

Ingredients for 4 servings: 1 kilo of snails (for this recipe just need 3 handful or 4. Use the rest of the boiled snails for another recipe), 2 spring thyme, 1 spring of rosemary, 5 fennel seeds, 6 garlic cloves, 1 bay leaf, water and some salt.

400 grs of rice (bomba or Bahía), 150 grs of cured panceta, 2 butifarras (catalan sausage) in small dices, 3 artichokes, 12 green beans, 1 onion, olive oil, 1 garlic clove and 2 table spoons of canned fried tomatoe, water and salt.

  • First of all, clean thoroughly the snails (they have been fasting for 1 week) many times under tap water. Rub their shells and make sure nothing keeps adhered to them. The snails that don’t come out their shells should be placed in hot water, if they still don’t come out, discard. Once clean, put them in a deep casserole with cold water covering them and turn on the heat the lowest possible. When they start to feel the warmness, they’ll try to scape and will come out of their shells. When the water starts boiling their body will be out and that makes it easy to eat them. Let them boil for one minute. Rinse. Put them back in a deep casserole with the herbs, garlics, and salt and boil for 45 minutes at medium/low heat. Reserve.
  • In a big sauce pan or another casserole (not a deep one), fry the panceta cut in dices with a bit of oil (4 to 5 table spoons) until golden, add the sausage cut in dices also and fry at medium heat, when golden
  • Add the artichoke and cook at low heat. Take the meat away and reserve in a plate.
  • Add the green beans, the onion and the garlic, all cleaned and chopped. Once is tender add the tomatoe sauce. Stir so that all ingredients absorb the flavours and scent.
  • Strain 4 handful of snails (keep the water in which they were cooked) and add to the meat and veggies casserole. Stir for 2 or 3 minutes.
  • Prepare a 3 liters pot with half the water (strained) of the boiling snails and half mineral water. Have it boiling softly.
  • Preheat the oven at 170ºC.
  • Add the rice to the casserole and stir for 1 minute. Watch that it doesn't get stuck to the bottom.
  • Pour some of the boiling snails water and cover the rice with it. Let the rest of the water keep on boiling so that you have if you need more. Stir and mix all ingredients and cook for 5 minutes at high heat. Taste and add salt if you consider it necessary.
  • Low the heat to medium and cook for another 5 minutes, if you see it gets dry add a bit more of water.
  • Place the casserole in a middle rack and have for 5 more minutes in the oven.
  • Take outside the oven and cover the casserole. Wait for another 5 minutes with the cover on the casserole and it will be ready to eat!
Notice that depending on the rice it will absorb more or less water. Follow your package instructions. A general rule is that the proportion water:rice is 2:1 But some rices are 2,5:1. That's why is very useful to keep the water boiling aside to add a bit more if necessary :D


Want to come for lunch? :D
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Pork Feet and Snails with Hot Sauce

There's some Spanish words which have gone further than expected... as for example: pata negra, I'm sure you all know what it means. Pata is foot and negra means black, the colour of our Iberian hoogs, a sign of quality! The best ham you can get comes from hoogs with black feet and a couple of weeks ago, I went to my favourite shop in Barcelona to get this one. Manuel kindly offered the hoog's foot to me.

And since I was there, I couldn't help buying some Reserva Iberica Ham... as soon as I set it on my kitchen table... 10 minutes after and it's gone!!!! Now you see it, now you don't... Magic! MMMmmm.

Even Barack Obama likes it! See him having a taste of Pata negra Iberian Ham and wondering why this has been forbidden in the States for so long! The link will take you to the Washington Post article.
We eat all from the pork: from its feet to its tail! I use the feet to make my meat broth and the tail too, but there's so many other ways to cook them. Today we will have a "down to earth" meal: Pork feet and snails. Wash your hands and get ready for the Feast!!!

Get the Power point recipe and images.

Ingredients for 4 servings Snails: 1 kg of snails, 1 garlic head, 100 grs of cured ham, 100 grs of bacon, 350 grs of onion/garlic and tomatoe sofrito (this time I bought a tin with a good one), 3 springs of fresh thyme, 1 spring of fresh rosemary, 1 bay leaf, 3 red hot chilli peppers (or 2 if 3 is too much), 2 glasses of water (snails cooking) and 1 of white dry wine (snails cooking), some springs of parsley, 5 toasted almonds, 5 toasted hazelnuts, salt and olive oil.

•First of all, clean throughly the snails many times under tap water. Rub their shells and make sure nothing keeps adhered to them. The snails that don’t come out their shells should be placed in hot water, if they still don’t come out, discard. Once clean, put them in a deep casserole with cold water covering them and turn on the heat the lowest possible. When they start to feel the warmness, they’ll try to scape and will come out of their shells. When the water starts boiling their body will be out and that makes it easy to eat them. Let them boil only one minute. Rinse.

•Start the sofrito with the olive oil, the cured ham and bacon. When they change their colour, add the onion, garlic and tomatoe (1 big onion, 1 garlic clove and 6 tomatoes grated). Cook it until done.
•If you buy the sofrito in a can then have it for 5 minutes, if you do it yourself cook at medium heat until the tomatoe gets dark and oily.

•Add the snails, the thyme, the rosemary, the bay leaf, the 3 red hot peppers, the garlic head and stir for 1 minute.
•Add the water and the wine, some salt and simmer at low heat with the cover on. Cook for 1 hour. 5 minutes before it’s done, add a dressing with the smashed almonds, hazelnuts, 1 garlic clove and parsley.

•Ingredients for 4 servings (pork feet): Ask your butcher to cut the pork feet as seen in the pic. You will need 4 feets, 1 garlic head, 1 bay leaf, a small bunch of black round pepper (12 balls) and water.
•Place the feet in a casserole with all the ingredients and cover with water. Turn heat on and have it very low and covered until the feet are done. It will take aprox 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Take the bones away and place inside a round object to get this timbal shape.

•Present with some snails, some sauce on the feet timbal and a spring of rosemary on top.
•I had some problems with the round feet timbal shape. Next time instead of taking the bones out, I’ll coat the feet in flour and fry in olive oil. It won’t be so easy to eat, but I think it will improve the dish. This one was spectacular though :D

I'm sending this recipe and first pic. to Jugalbandi to their month's Click Event: Au Naturel
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Cargol treu Banya - Snail show me your Horns

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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Licked Snails

•Ingredients for 4 persons: 1 Kg. of snails, 150 grs. Slices of bacon, 150 of pork sausage, 100 grs. of cured ham, 2 onions, 5 tomatoes, 4 garlic cloves, olive oil, 20 grs. of flour, a bit of sugar, black pepper and salt.

Get PowerPoint recipe
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•First of all, snails should have been at least one week without eating. Then they have to be cleaned and washed several times. If you buy them frozen the recipe is shorter. If you don’t and they are alive follow this instruccions: When you have them clean have them in a pot with cold water at low fire, they will start showing out of the shell, when they do, turn fire on to top and have them boiling for 10 minutes. Rinse and clean up. Make them boil again in new water and some salt another 10 minutes. Reserve.

•Have olive oil in a casserole, cut the pork sausage and fry.
•When changes its colour into golden, leave aside.
•In the same oil, fry the bacon cut in small pieces,
•When it gets golden, leave aside in the same plate the sausage pork is.
•In the same oil fry the cured ham and leave aside when it’s done.
•In the same oil place the onions and garlic cloves. Slow down the fire and stir until you get…
•This texture and colour.
•Make a sauce out of the tomatoes.
•And pour into the casserole. Stir at medium fire.
•Rinse the snails and have them ready.
•Keep on stirring until tomatoe looses all its water and gets a oily texture
•And changes its colour.

•Add all the meat back and stir for 5 minutes.
•Put the snails into the casserole and stir for another 5 minutes, so that the sauce gets everywhere.

•Add a glass of water and one of these small spicy red peppers.
•Have it all cooking for 45 minutes at low/medium fire.
•Add the flour, the salt, the sugar and the black pepper and stir until you get a thick sauce. They will be done!!
•Now you can eat and lick them!!!
•Warn about the spicy red little pepper!!
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SNAILS



Ahhhh Snails... Mmmmm so yummy! I can understand that you think: Awwggghhh I'm not having that near my mouth... no way!

You are mistaken! I tell you, this little ones are so good, they just combine perfectly well with many things as for example rice or pork or pasta or by themselves. There's only one moment I completely dislike about snails: cleaning them. But after they are cleaned, it's so worth the job :D.

Snails with garlic and mint

Rice Snails with veggies

Licked Snails

Pork feet with snails
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