A simple recipe to prepare good snails with their stuffing. For those who love snails, one thing is certain, this recipe will be a real treat. This special butter gives the snails an incredible quality and the parsley gives a fresh taste.
If you have collected your snails yourself: fast them for 5 to 7 days, then drain them in warm water with coarse salt and vinegar, changing the water several times. Scald them for a few minutes, remove the shells and separate the foot (to be kept) from the organs (to be thrown away). Then cook them in a court-bouillon for 1 hour and leave them to cool in the cooking water (they can be kept and frozen in this way). Meanwhile, wash and brush the shells. To save you this long and laborious process (although some say that it is not necessary to degorge or boil), you can buy your snails au naturel, ready to be cooked.
Prepare the parsley butter: chop the parsley and garlic very finely. Mix the butter with this mixture and season with pepper. Adjust the salt if necessary (depending on the salinity of the butter). Strain and set aside in the fridge for at least 8 hours, so that the butter infuses well.
Put a dab of parsley butter in each shell, a snail (or two if they are small) and cover generously with parsley butter. Place the snails in the oven at 180 °C for 7 or 8 minutes. Serve with a herb salad (dandelion, watercress, rocket, spinach shoots, fennel) and a dry, fruity white wine, such as Riesling or Chardonnay.
