Processing and preparation of grape snails. Cooking grape snails at home

Prepared by: Aelita

10/22/2012 Cooking time: 1 hour 0 minutes

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Snails fried with rosemary are delicious. Delicious. I understand that most readers have a disdainful attitude towards snails, but maybe it’s still worth trying at least once in your life? :)

General information

Modern citizens of our country associate grape snails (the recipe for the dish will be presented below) more with the sea or an aquarium than with cooking. However, it should be noted that in many countries of Asia and Europe this is a common item on the menu of cafes and restaurants. Snails are bred on special farms and sold frozen or alive.

Cooking grape snails at home became fashionable only in the 20th century. In those days, a dish using this product was considered a delicacy. Although even now in Russia not everyone makes such a dinner for the usual family table. Snails are cooked only on major holidays and only if you really want to surprise your guests.

However, in many countries of Europe and Asia, snails are a common item on restaurant menus.

We briefly fry everything that is left of the snails in a frying pan, then simmer in the sauce that we prepared in advance. I cooked it in chimichurri sauce, this is an Argentine sauce made from onions, olive oil, dry and fresh parsley, etc. 9) Next, you need to push the finished legs back into the sink, filling the voids with the same sauce in which the snails were stewed.

Somehow before, when buying frozen semi-finished snail products in a supermarket, or ordering in a restaurant, I didn’t think about the peculiarities of killing these cute crawling creatures with horns... And only after I caught them, fed them and gave them names.. About names - this was a joke. I then caught more than sixty snails - what names are there?..

Probably, in the industry they are killed somehow differently, humanely, in tiny electric chairs. Seriously, it's pathetic and disgusting, of course. Many more grape snails die in Peterhof under the blades of lawn mowers.

One chef (in a Russian restaurant) told me that he _talks_ to the food. Not only with slaughter, but also with vegetables, I suppose. Why torture snails by killing them in salt? Just put it in boiling water and it’s ready, instant death is better. We boil the crayfish alive, and the snails are too bad, let them learn, they have such cute horns.

Most of these products have high nutritional value and contain many microelements and vitamins that help produce large amounts of hormones in the human body. These include: caviar, shrimp, mussels, oysters, and even, who would have thought, ordinary snails.

Snails are the largest class of mollusks, the distinctive feature of which is the presence of a spiral shell. Both are used as food. But grape snails are slightly larger (shell diameter is up to 4 cm), and therefore they are specially grown for gastronomic purposes on special snail farms. We will collect them fresh and alive. If you collect snails in parks, wastelands, or forests, then you need to cleanse their digestive system.

Having collected a couple of dozen snails, we place them in a large saucepan or basin for a simple diet. Pour a little flour into the bottom of the container (2 tablespoons per 1 kg of snails). On the first day, snails are given flour at the same rate - 2 tablespoons per 1 kg of snails.

There are two ways to prepare snails “Russian style”. We wash the snails. Then we dip them in a mixture of coarse salt and hot pepper, place the shell hole up on the grate and place it on a pre-made fire made from dry grape twigs (you can also use birch).

As in the first case, salt and pepper the snails. You can also cook boiled snails, or, which is aerobatics, stuffed snails - escargot. To do this, you need to separate the snail meat from the shells, cook them in a special way, and then place them back in the shells.

And these ones also sing while frying!!! I poured boiling water over live or thawed snails and let them sit for a long time - from two to eight hours. Next, I took them out of the shells, cleaned them (cut off the stem from everything else) and marinated them. Of course, this process takes time and patience. It was worth freezing the snails in the freezer or pouring boiling water over them for a minute.

And yet, dear author, the whistle that we hear over the barbecue is not made by snails. This is how steam escapes from the insides of the shell, covered by the snail’s body. If we talk about my wonderful video, then believe Herman, it is the gastronomic qualities that attract me to snails. And it is best to cook them alive, and not small frozen corpses (I hope children, ladies and the faint of heart do not read this comment).

Thanks for the detailed description of preparing the snails before cooking. On January 1st, I don’t really want to stand at the stove... a semi-finished product that I always have in stock comes to the rescue - frozen grape snails. For a modern city dweller, the words grape snail are more likely to evoke associations with aquariums than with cooking. Grape snails are farmed and sold live or frozen and ready to eat.

For thousands of years, snails, like other mollusks, were a common food for the inhabitants of the coastal regions of Europe. From early spring to late autumn, snails were collected on beaches, in gardens, and in vineyards. They were salvation for the poor and a delicacy for the nobility. Today, grape snails can be found not only on the warm European shores, but also in Ukraine, Belarus, and the central regions of Russia.

Product benefits

Are grape snails healthy? The method of preparing this product is such that it retains almost all the nutritional components. It should be noted that snail meat is often recommended for those who are on a diet. After all, 100 g of this product contains only 90 calories, as well as 2-3% fat, 15% protein and no cholesterol. In addition, snails contain unsaturated fatty acids. They are rich in phosphorus, zinc, magnesium, calcium, potassium, copper, iron and vitamins B, A and E.

Mode

Grape snails are active only at night. During the day they sleep, hiding in their house, and at night they eat and walk. When you approach the terrarium in the morning, you can find a dug up substrate, food remains, and mucous stains on the walls.

In addition to daytime sleep, long-term suspended animation is very important for snails. In nature, it begins with a strong increase in air temperature, the onset of cold weather or drought. At home, such conditions will have to be created artificially to stimulate the onset of hibernation. Otherwise, the mollusks will begin to wither and get sick, their lifespan will be shortened, and growing and maintaining them will become problematic.

Experienced shellfish breeders use 2 approaches:

Temporal. The change in activity and suspended animation of creatures takes place according to a clearly defined schedule. For example, a pet stays awake for three weeks and falls into a long sleep for a week.
Natural. The terrarium simulates the same conditions as outside. During rainy periods we increase the humidity, on dry days we create dryness, and when it gets cold we lower the temperature.

You can choose any of the two approaches and follow it all the time.

Fastest cooking

Quickly cooking grape snails is especially popular among tourists, who, if they unexpectedly encounter these river animals, can diversify their diet in a matter of minutes. After all, it very often happens that for some reason snails begin a mass migration and crawl out onto the roads. In half an hour, tourists are able to collect several kilograms of live food, and after another quarter of an hour, get a hearty and nutritious lunch.

Of course, preparing grape snails at home requires the use of special ingredients. But if you decide to make such a dish outdoors, then you can get by with a modest set of products.

To make a delicious lunch, freshly caught river animals are thoroughly washed and then placed on a grill over the coals with the holes facing up. At the same time, add a small pinch of table salt and pepper to each shell, and also pour in a little sunflower oil or put in a piece of lard. In this form, grape snails are baked for about ten minutes.

After the meat is cooked, it is picked out of the shell with a toothpick, separated from inedible elements and consumed with a slice of bread.

Sequencing

Onions and garlic are chopped and lightly fried in vegetable oil. Then they are stewed together with tomato paste and paprikamus. After a few minutes, broth, salt and herbs are added to the same bowl. All this is simmered over low heat for a quarter of an hour, and then combined with snails and brought to a boil again.

An accessible source of food for the traveler are snails. Almost all of their species found in the territory of the former USSR are edible. They are often found in large colonies, therefore, without any serious effort, literally with your bare hands in a few minutes you can collect and cook a significant number of land mollusks, among which the grape snail occupies a special place.

Cooking snails in boiling water

Cooking grape snails in field conditions may involve the use of different types of heat treatment. If you do not want to bake them, then for this you should prepare several liters of boiling water. All the snails are dipped into it at once and boiled for about 3-5 minutes after boiling.

This procedure will allow you to quickly clean the snails of existing mucus, and will also make their removal much easier. Once the meat is removed from the shell, it is cut up, leaving only the fleshy cephalopod. In the future, cooks act at their own discretion. Some of them continue to cook the product in salted boiling water with various vegetables, obtaining a full-fledged soup, and some fry it in lard or sunflower oil along with garlic and onions. In the latter case, you will get a very tasty appetizer that resembles white meat or mushrooms.

Features of frozen semi-finished product

Snails have been considered a delicacy for a long time. Even just preparing them in the simplest way - boiling - already means making an unusual dish. Their boiled meat is considered a nutritious dish and is highly appreciated by gourmets all over the world. You can buy shellfish at any supermarket, and some housewives even freeze them for future use on their own.

Before putting the snails in the freezer, boil them for 5 minutes, then cover the pan with a lid, turn off the heat and let it sit for 10 minutes. Then remove with a slotted spoon to a plate, peel, rinse, dry and freeze. Grape snail meat prepared in this way can be subsequently prepared in any way you like: fried or stewed.

Cleaning the product at home

How to prepare grape snails for cooking? If you have enough time and a full set of kitchen utensils, there are several options for how to make a delicacy from the river product. But to do this, it must be properly cleaned.

To do this, some cooks keep the snails in the refrigerator in an empty pan for three to ten days, washing them periodically. Other housewives recommend leaving the product on bran, flour or aromatic herbs such as fennel and thyme for several days. With this method, already on the third day the snails will be cleaned and acquire a natural aroma.

In Mediterranean countries, live snails purchased at markets are not subjected to a cleansing procedure. This is due to the fact that on farms they are already prepared for consumption. As for our country, unfortunately, such a product without preliminary cleaning loses quite a lot in taste.

After completing the cleansing procedure, you should make sure that there are no dead snails among the living snails. To do this, they are placed in water and those who have not shown any signs of life are removed.

After performing the described actions, the snails are boiled in boiling water directly along with the shells, and then washed well. Only after this the product becomes suitable for culinary experiments.

Snails - primary processing, cooking technology

by the author

Snails - primary processing, cooking technology.

Snail is a terrestrial gastropod.

Snail meat contains up to 10% easily digestible protein, which is several times higher than that of a chicken egg, about 30% fat and 5% carbohydrates. B vitamins, macro and microelements.

Use of snails in cooking:

The season for catching snails, from which the most delicious dishes are obtained, begins from the beginning of April until the beginning of October.

In many cuisines around the world, snail is considered a gastronomic delicacy. The appearance of snails in cooking dates back to ancient Greece; snails were fried and eaten before dinner, washed down with wine. In the Middle Ages, snails were considered a lean food and were eaten fried with onions during fasting.

Nowadays, snail is present in the cuisines of many countries:

In France, Germany, Switzerland and a number of other countries, the main supplier of snails is Greece. In the cuisines of these and many other countries, there are a large number of recipes for preparing dishes with snails. Thousands of tons of snails are eaten in these countries every year.

In addition to importing snails, Russia has its own supplier in the Kaliningrad region. There, snails are bred for sale to restaurants, for use in the pharmaceutical industry, and for sale in stores.

Primary preparation and processing:

1 - The first thing you need to do after you bring fresh snails home is to make sure that all the snails are alive. To do this, place the snails in a large container of water. After some time, live snails will emerge from their shells. We sort the snails and wash the live ones in running water.

2 – Next, you need to put the snails in a saucepan with a lid and add a little flour. So the snails must be kept for 24 hours by periodically sprinkling them with water. During this time, the snails are cleansed of unwanted, unpleasant reserves. You can optionally increase the period to three days. At the same time, on the second day we reduce the amount of flour by half. On the third day we don’t give anything.

3 – Then we transfer the snails into a container with strongly salted water and leave for 2 hours so that the snails release their mucus.

4 –Next, rinse well, periodically changing the water, and use a brush.

5 - Next, remove the film from the snails that covers the hole and put the snails in acidified water, which we heat a little over low heat. The snails themselves begin to crawl out of their shells; those that do not crawl out are very easily removed with a toothpick.

In cooking we use only the fleshy part of the snail (leg).

After you have removed the snail meat, you are left with empty shells; they are also used in cooking; they can be used for serving in some dishes. But for this, the shells also need to be prepared. The shells must be boiled in water with the addition of soda for an hour. Then rinse in clean water and dry. This treatment allows the shells to be reused many times.

Cooking technology:

Before eating snail meat, it must be boiled in salted water with spices for twenty minutes. Be careful not to overcook the snails, otherwise the meat will become tough and tasteless.

Snails can be prepared in different ways, and there are hundreds of dishes with snail meat: cook broths; stew with wine; grill on a grill, sprinkle with salt, pepper and fennel; stuffed and baked.

Maltese stew

Processing and preparing grape snails at home is a quick and easy process. After the product is cleaned and scalded with boiling water, it is immediately used to create culinary delights.

So, to make a delicious Maltese dish, we will need:

dry red wine – 1 glass;
blanched snails – about 500 g;
olive oil – 45 ml;
fresh mint, marjoram and basil - use to taste;
pepper and salt - use to taste.

Snail caviar

Snail caviar is a world-recognized delicacy, surpassing even sturgeon caviar in its taste characteristics. It is distinguished by an optimal ratio of vitamin and mineral complexes, saturates the body with magnesium, zinc, copper, and saves from diseases of the cardiovascular system and thyroid gland. On average, one snail is capable of laying from 100 to 120 eggs per clutch, and it will take approximately three hundred mollusks to collect one kilogram of caviar. Each egg has a white matte shell and is laid by the snail in the ground. Due to their fragility, the eggs are collected only by hand by experienced specialists and sorted using a magnifying glass, which emphasizes the exclusivity and price of the product.

Cooking process

How are grape snails stewed? The recipe for this dish requires the use of a saucepan. Olive oil is poured into it, and then previously processed snails are laid out. After frying the product a little (right in the shells), it is poured with dry red wine, and then salted, peppered and simmered over low heat for about ¼ hour.

Shortly before turning off the stove, add finely chopped herbs to the saucepan and mix all the ingredients thoroughly.

It is advisable to serve the finished snails in their shells hot, after pouring them with the sauce remaining in the saucepan.

Fried snails Cretan style (with rosemary)

Cooking grape snails at home will take you about ¼ hour. But this is only if you comply with all prescription requirements.

So, to make snails the Cretan way, you need to purchase:

prepared blanched snails – at least 500 g;
olive oil – about 100 ml;
wine vinegar – 2 large spoons;
rosemary - large spoon;
table salt – add to taste.

Snail diet and its influence

It is impossible to answer the question in advance whether eating grape snails will be beneficial or harmful.
Everything will depend on what they ate. Some recommend purchasing live shellfish in advance and either not feeding them at all for several days, or offering a menu of grape leaves. If you have the opportunity to purchase grape snails from a fisherman who collected them himself or is an intermediary in the sale, you need to ask exactly when they were collected and whether the batch is fresh. You can also collect snails yourself in parks and gardens near your home. And don’t worry about whether you can eat snails from the street, these are the same snails that you buy at the market.

The safest are shellfish that were collected more than 5-7 days ago. But if the date of the catch is unknown, the grape snails will need to be marinated for several days without food, or fed with something that is not harmful to the human diet. In addition to grape leaves, this can be a cucumber, greens like lettuce, as well as pieces of apples and other fruits.

The proposed food will allow you to get rid of the previous food, which is potentially dangerous to the health of those who are going to eat grape shellfish. After fattening, the shellfish are placed in a container with cold water diluted with salt or apple cider vinegar. In this way, you can separate the waste from the snail itself and dissect it.

Cooking method

Before frying the snails, heat a thick frying pan very hot, and then add a thin layer of table salt. Next, place the entire processed product into the dish with the holes facing down and allow it to dry.

After all the excess moisture has gone, add olive oil to the snails, stir and fry for 3-5 minutes. Then rosemary and wine vinegar are added to them. Mix all ingredients well and remove from heat.

Serve snails in their shells for dinner only after they have been doused with the oil in which they were fried. The meat of river animals must be pulled out with a toothpick. Before using it, be sure to remove the dark tip.

Top 6 delicious dishes from Achatina.

Achatina snails in garlic oil – Snail oil

Fry the snail fillet in sunflower oil, add salt to taste. Let's start preparing the garlic oil. Finely chop the garlic. Wash the parsley, dry it, and chop it finely. Soften the butter. Mix oil, garlic and herbs, add lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste, mix thoroughly. Place green garlic oil in molds and place a piece of fried snail meat on top. Bake in a preheated oven for 2-3 minutes. Serve the aromatic dish hot.

Achatina snails with mustard sauce

Place snail fillets in boiling salted water and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Let's start preparing the mustard sauce. Combine mustard with vinegar and olive oil, salt and pepper to taste, mix thoroughly until smooth and thick. Add finely chopped parsley to the sauce and stir. Serve snails on lettuce leaves, generously pour sauce on top.

Achatina snails baked in the oven with cheese

Place snail fillets in a saucepan and pour in diluted dry wine in a ratio of 50:50. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes. Place bay leaf. At this time, fry chopped onion, parsley root, pepper, salt, cumin in sunflower oil. Then transfer everything into a baking dish, place snail fillets on top, pour generously with mayonnaise and cover with feta cheese or cheese. Cook in the oven until a beautiful golden brown crust forms. The dish is delicious both hot and cold.

Homemade Achatina snails

Place the snail fillet in boiling water and cook for 20 minutes. Then they need to be cooled. At this time, fry the onion in vegetable oil. Mix snails with fried onions, sour cream or mayonnaise, add salt and pepper to taste. Serve the snails in tartlets or on a slice of white bread.

Fragrant soup with shellfish Achatina

Peel and wash all the vegetables, then cut into strips and chop the parsley in a blender. Add butter, chopped onion and Achatina fillet to the frying pan and simmer for about 20-25 minutes over low heat. At this time, wine, broth and chopped vegetables are poured into a saucepan and boiled for 10 minutes. Add fried onions and snail meat to the broth with vegetables. In a separate container, mix raw eggs and cream, mix thoroughly and add to the soup. Let it boil, sprinkle the clam soup with parsley. Remove from heat. Bon appetit!

Pasta with Achatina snails in sour cream sauce

Fry the Achatina fillet in butter with salt and spices, then add sour cream or mayonnaise, simmer for 4-5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, add the crushed clove of garlic and leave to simmer. Meanwhile, boil the pasta. Serve pasta generously sprinkled with Achatina snails in sour cream sauce.

You can serve snails stewed in tomato sauce with pasta.

Fry the onion, carrots, celery and bell pepper cut into strips in butter. Add snails to them, salt and pepper. When the vegetables and snails are well stewed, add 2-3 chopped peeled tomatoes to them. Simmer a little more. Serve with pasta.

Step-by-step recipe for preparing grape snails at home

The most delicious dish made from grape snails is the French dish escargot. To make it at home, you won’t need a lot of effort and time.

So, the classic recipe for preparing grape snails involves the use of the following components:

canned grape snails - about 1 kg;
fresh baguette – 1 pc.;
high quality butter - approximately 300 g;
fresh garlic – 1 head;
olive oil – approximately 30 ml;
lemon juice - apply to taste;
parsley, fresh herbs, salt - use to taste.

How to cook?

Before all snails are subjected to heat treatment, their meat is carefully removed from their shells and then cleaned of inedible elements. Next, place it in a frying pan and fry for 3 minutes using olive oil.

While the snails are frying, wash and dry all the shells well. Subsequently, thermally processed meat is returned to them. After this, take the butter, cut it into small pieces and add crushed garlic cloves. Then lemon juice and finely chopped herbs, including parsley, are poured into the same bowl. All ingredients are salted, peppered and crushed using a blender. The resulting mass is used to seal the shells, after which they are laid out on a dry baking sheet with the holes facing up.

After filling the sheet, it is sent to the oven. At a temperature of 240 degrees, the snails are cooked for 3 minutes (no more).

The easiest recipe for beginners

So, the easiest way to prepare snails is salad. For two standard servings (300 grams of snail meat) you will need: 1 chicken egg, 1 cucumber, mayonnaise and seasonings to taste (salt, any fresh herbs and pepper).

Remove the boiled meat from the shells.
Grind the boiled egg and cucumber.
Finely chop the meat.
Mix all ingredients with mayonnaise and seasonings.

Now a slightly more complex, but very tasty recipe - Burgundy-style snails.

Ingredients:

240 ml water;
1 bay leaf;
0.5 teaspoons of salt;
1 sprig of thyme;
30 grams of carrots;
30 grams of onion;
250 ml white wine;
300-400 grams of snail meat;
0.5 teaspoons 3% vinegar;
165 grams of butter.

Cooking process:

Pour wine and water into the pan, add salt and vinegar.
Finely chop the vegetables and herbs and place in a saucepan.
Remove the meat from the shells and place in the marinade.
Cook for 50 minutes.
Add bay leaf, cook for another five minutes.
Boil the shells in a weak soda solution and rinse with water.
Beat butter and garlic in a blender, add seasonings to taste.
Mix snail meat with garlic oil.
Fill the shells with the resulting mixture.
Bake in the oven for five minutes at 180°C.

Proper serving at the dinner table

Escargot is a very popular dish in Europe. To serve it to the dinner table, they even came up with special utensils: a metal tray with small recesses for shells (that is, an escargot bowl), tongs that allow you to hold the shell, and a fork with two long teeth, with which you remove the contents.

In France, escargot is served as a pre-dinner snack. As for Australia and the USA, in these countries this dish is considered the main one.

After the grape snails are heat-treated in the oven, they are laid out on a metal tray and presented to the table along with tongs and a fork. A fresh and crispy baguette is also cut separately, which is enjoyed as a snack on a creamy meat dish.