Snails In Mushroom Caps With Garlic Butter & Cheese

This is a favorite snack of mine, but an easy recipe you can make for a fancy dinner.

You only need a few ingredients:
Pre-heat oven to 350 F

Canned snails (the French call them Escargots)
Medium sized mushrooms
Butter
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
A nice sharp Cheddar




Snap the stems out of the mushrooms and give them a little rinse under the tap.
Place the caps in an oiled pan and stuff 2 -3 snails into each one.




Heat 1/3 cup of butter on med-high and crush in some garlic.




Make sure the garlic browns just slightly at a rapid boil.





Pour the garlic butter over the stuffed caps, making sure to hit each stuffed cap.
Grate or slice a sharp cheddar over the entire dish.



As they cook in the oven, (about 20 min.) keep an eye so you don't over-cook.
I like to broil them for the last few minutes to brown the cheese.





This is the end result:




A great snack to enjoy while you surf the boards.
I finished the plate while I wrote this thread.



EDIT: I missed a pic








[edit on 9/4/2007 by anxietydisorder]

Looks great man!

I've never had them with cheddar.
Is the a "standard" cheese used?
Most of the ones I've eaten were made with a white cheese.

Um, snails? heh, um....I don't know what to say...um...nice..dish you got...there...heh

how about replace them with Australian lobsters

I really think the choice of cheese is up to you, and what you prefer. I'd encourage you to experiment.

Parmigiano tends to over-power the delicate flavour of the snails and mushrooms, and a mozzarella makes the texture very rubbery when you consider the texture of the other ingredients.
If you use a Romano the flavour becomes too musky.


With so many varieties of cheese to choose from, it's your choice.
I just think a sharp cheddar compliments the dish without overpowering the other ingredients.

I hope you give it a try spacedoubt.

Originally posted by Russian soldier

how about replace them with Australian lobsters

Actually, you can stuff the mushroom caps with lobster and do the recipe the same way.

Lobster is fantastic cooked this way, but if you use crab or something like shark or cod you need to cut out the garlic and put in some shallots for a more delicate flavour.

It's all good.

[edit on 9/4/2007 by anxietydisorder]

How about something more mundane like diced ham? Just the thought of snails and/or lobster make me, like, well

[edit on 4/10/2007 by djohnsto77]

Originally posted by djohnsto77
How about something more mundane like diced ham?

A shaved smoked ham with Emmental works really well.
Most of the Swiss cheeses lend themselves very well to ham.

Just skip the garlic butter and serve it with some honey mustard sauce.




Edit: Spend the extra bucks tor a Black Forrest Ham, it's worth it. And only buy very fresh and firm mushrooms.

The sum of your ingredients is directly proportional the quality of the entire dish.



[edit on 10/4/2007 by anxietydisorder]

Originally posted by anxietydisorder

Originally posted by Russian soldier

how about replace them with Australian lobsters

Actually, you can stuff the mushroom caps with lobster and do the recipe the same way.

Lobster is fantastic cooked this way, but if you use crab or something like shark or cod you need to cut out the garlic and put in some shallots for a more delicate flavour.

It's all good.

[edit on 9/4/2007 by anxietydisorder]

AND take out the cheese, I don't like cheese either, but it seems like it might ruin the dish? I'm good with cooking lots of different Russian foods, soup, taiwanese food, steaks and shashliki, piroshki, I make awesome sandwitches, I really have good taste in food and have an appetite for delicious and fancy foods

Leave out the mushrooms and booger... I mean snails, and I could eat it. Maybe on bread like uh, ...grilled cheese. Yeah, that's it!

Oh I don't do mushrooms or snails. But I'm looking at them anxietydisorder If you need any slugs after a good rain just let me know, I could pick a few pounds off the grass out back

Not for me. My husband would eat them though...he likes them

Oh Jen, I love the slugs in the Pacific NorthWest.
Send me a bucket of the black ones if you can, but I'd settle for the spotted green ones if that's all you have.

I'll clean the slime off myself when they get here because I like to preserve it for use as a painkiller. Slug slime on a toothache is far better than anything you can get at the druggist.


This is "Food and Cooking", so here's a recipe.

Slug Fritters

Ingredients
10 freshly slaughtered slugs cleaned of all outer mucous
1/2 cup of cornmeal
1/2 cup of high protein flour
3 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4 cup of heavy cream
4 tbs. Of butter
4tsp.of sour cream

Instructions

First chop the slugs into fine mince, then beat the eggs and egg yolks with the heavy cream together. Sift the dry ingredients and then cut 2 tbs of butter into that mixture. Add the egg and cream mixture to the dry ingredients and whip with a whisk vigorously for one to two minutes. Melt one tbs of butter in a sauté pan and pure the batter into 2 1/2 inch cakes in two batches. Serve warm with a dollop of sour cream.
Yields 4 servings.

bertc.com...

EDIT: I just wanted to add something important.
NEVER SALT YOUR FRESH SLUGS........ All the juice runs out.

There's some really weird recipes on this site:
bertc.com...

If you ever wanted to know how to jelly a moose nose, this is the place to visit.

[edit on 10/4/2007 by anxietydisorder]

Good... clean the slime off....ewww...yuck! I can't stand those slimy boogers....I pour salt on them and kill them all the time. Ewww even more slime

I've never had snails...

I'm not sure if I would try them, however I like other mollusks such as clams, scallops, squid, etc...

But I don't know if I'd try snail...reminds me of slugs too much.

Me oh my they do look delishious...........I hope you enjoyed them anxietydisorder........next time make enough for everyone.ha!

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
I just wanted to add something important.
NEVER SALT YOUR FRESH SLUGS........ All the juice runs out.

Wouldn't want that now would we?

If you ever wanted to know how to jelly a moose nose, this is the place to visit.

Maybe with a presentation of some nice juicy slugs hanging out of it.

I know it's all psychological, but I just don't think I could do it. Which is a bit hypocritical on my part, since I have no problem eating

Originally posted by yeahright
I know it's all psychological, but I just don't think I could do it.

Psychologial or not? I'm with you on this one yeahright!

AD...how about you Woo us with some yummy Calimari? Now that's something i can dig into Just the rings, no tentacles for me please...it makes me imagine those people eating live baby octopus...with the tentacles grabbing their face.... Psychological again? Probably

[edit on 4/12/2007 by jensouth31]

Oh man I love escargot!!! Probably next to sushi it's my favorite food in the whole world.

I love to make them in an escargot dish, of which I have two, with garlic butter topped with puff pastry rounds.

The best I ever had though was at the Adam's Mark hotel here in Houston. They put them in a little baking dish covered in a wine/garlic/cream sauce covered with puff pastry. Sinful!!!!

Good call Anx, but I'm not diggin' the cheddar.

Peace

[edit on 12-4-2007 by Dr Love]

Originally posted by jensouth31

AD...how about you Woo us with some yummy Calimari?

Just for you jensouth, the next recipe I post will be stuffed squid. I'll see if I can find some big frozen ones at my grocer. I live too far from a coast to buy them fresh.

Fair warning though, I do use the tentacles in the stuffing, but I chop them up.

I've never had them stuffed, but if it taste anything like the fried ring....yummy

If you live in California you can just use the snails in your back yard. There were none here until a dumb French chef imported them to San Francisco in the late 1800s and let them loose. Now they are everywhere and there are recipes in local cookbooks on how to clean and prepare the garden ones. They're much cheaper and even better than the canned ones.

Occam