In French cuisine, snail is a much celebrated delicacy. So, when I was in France, I did it the French way–chowing down a bowl of these sea snails/whelks, or Bulots in French. (Thanks Pip for your information.)
I absolutely loved them and couldn’t get enough. Served cold with garlic mayonnaise, all I could say was “C’est si bon!” (It is so good!)
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I found a recipe of Bulots Mayonnaise here, but for your convenience, I have summarized it below:
(AKA “Belgian” Escargot de Bruxelles)
Ingredients:
1/2 kg bulots
1 1/2 liters water
1 glass of dry white wine or a little wine vinegar
1/2 tsp black pepper (grain, not ground pepper)
1 leaf of laurel
Some thyme leaves
Some fresh parsley
Salt to taste
For the Mayonnaise:
1 uncooked egg yolk
1 small teaspoon French mustard from Dijon
Peanut oil
Olive oil
Freshly squeezed lime juice,
1 garlic clove
Salt to taste
Method:
Clean the bulots by soaking in salt water and then rinsed with clean water a few times. Place them in a pan with cold water (1.5 liters) wine, pepper, the laurel leaf, thyme and parsley. Add salt to taste and heat until it’s boiling.
Skim when necessary, and let it lightly boil for 40 min.
When cooked, let the snails cool off in their cooking juices. When cold you’ll eat them with thouthpicks. Everything but the opercula is edible.
In a bowl mix the egg yolk and the mustard with a little spoon. Slowly add (little by little) the peanut oil. Add a little olive oil (5 teaspoons) for flavour, and then salt and one teaspoon of fresh lemon juice to taste. Mix everything well and set aside.
Press the garlic clove or cut it into very fine slices. Add the garlic to the mayonnaise to fit your taste. Adjust mayonnaise to your flavour by adding more lemon juice, salt, or garlic to taste.
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{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, but I don’t think I could ever eat them cold. (Don’t like cold food..) But they are really good hot!
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J’adore les escargots :) We also like to dip them in Nuoc cham - so addictive.
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I have to agree with Manggy. Hot is great. Cold… the jury is still out. I’ll have to try them cold before I can give you the final verdict.
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They are gorgeous and lovely! Had them in Paris & Belgium!
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your ’sea snails’ are actually bulot in french, or whelks in english. land snails are escargots and tend to be cooked in garlic butter. personally, i prefer the bulots … you can buy them already cuit (cooked) from seafood stalls in france … and they are absolutely divine!
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I prefer them to be served warm and my favourite is Escargots de Bourgogne!!http://www.mycookinghut.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/redo1.jpg
Simplement délicieux!
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Oh, I would devour them with a Vietnamese dipping sauce of fish sauce, chili peppers, lime, and ginger. Mmmm.
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Hi Bee:
Welcome Back! Looks like you had a great trip.
Happy New Year!!
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I say yum. Back in the Philippines we it big pots of snails cooked in ginger.
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Oh man! These snails are exactly like those I ate in the Buffet prepared Chinese style. All you can eat, eat until pengsan.
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yuck! don’t think i will like it. how does it taste like? mussel? balitong?
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Yes!! I had these in France as well. They were so good. I prefer them over regular ole garden snails. Unfortunately, they also gave me food poisoning, but it was worth it haha.
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how come err the escargots are so “small” compared to the big juicy ones we get..?
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tasty~ so nice photo
and i’ll say:happy new year!happy new day!
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I’ve had shrimp, crab, and fish (cerviche) hot or cold, depending on the dish. So I’d try snails cold, but I might switch back to the French way afterwards, since I love them that way.
S
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All - thanks so much for your comments. Good stuff.
Chuck - the seafood trays served in the restaurants in France are mostly cold/chilled seafood. I started to really like them cold. :)
Lucia - they taste great. It’s like balitong, but without the slimey-ness. Really! If you like balitong, you will like it, they taste nothing like mussels, but with similar briny sweetness.
JadedOne - me too. After I tasted these, I will say that I prefer them over escargots / garden snails. They are just very good.
Joe - they are quite big, bigger than escargot.
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Yum! I will have to try these next time I am there.
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I love them too in lemon chillie sauce. Yum!
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Once again…….thanks for your butter cake recipe. I love baking cake but never turn out right. Most of the time my cake turn out dry even I follow step by step! I feel very proud after my friends tasted my cake. Oh!one more thing I want to share with you…I’m from Ipoh.
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I ate so many of those!
So delicious but so hard to find in the US. I need to plan another ‘eating rampage’ in France.
:-)
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i think c’est si bon is a wrong transalation..
it should be c’est bon!..cause “c’est si bon” means if it IS good.
cheers!
c’est bonne comme ca
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does anyone mind giving me some background info on this eating snail habbits?
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I recently had bulots at a little French restaurant here in New York City where I live.
I loved them and would like to find out where I can find them for purchase (preferably already cooked, but if that is an impossibility I’ll take them any way I can).
Many thanks for any help you may offer.
Christina
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Rasa Malaysia replied:
I have never seen them in the US. Tough luck, we have to import from France. ;)
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