WORCESTERSHIRE WALLFISH
(SNAILS)
My father always maintained that one of the first full sentences I ever uttered as a toddler was “Can I eat it?” I was probably holding a garden snail (Helix aspersa) in my hand at the time. I remember him saying that the French ate snails but only the edible Roman snail (H. pomatia) which was bigger and that you could still find these snails in the Cotswold hills. They had been brought over to England by the Romans and had escaped captivity. My childish imagination pictured two thousand year old snails the size of cart wheels wandering around the countryside.
It wasn’t till my teens that I visited France and discovered that they ate both types and called them Petit Gris and Escargo respectively. I ate many in France and some in England which I suspected of having been imported from France. Either way they were all served in the same way: lashings of garlic butter. Don’t get me wrong, I like my snails like this but I could not help thinking that the French were not giving the snails the respect they deserved; rather treating them as the secondary ingredient next to the garlic. Many say “Why bother eating them when all you can taste is garlic?”
Later in life my wife and I started visiting various European countries and I came to the conclusion that just about everyone, with the exception of the fickle English and perhaps the Germans, were eating snails. We once came across a man sat behind two baskets full of snails (called Caracóis and the recipe: à Portuguesa) in a Portuguese market. They were of a different species still, probably Cepaea nemoralis nemoralis, and of two different sizes. The price reflected this and every time one made a bid for freedom he’d flick it back into the basket with a long stick. Some made it only to be crushed under foot by passers by. My Portuguese wasn’t sufficiently good enough to ask how he would prepare and serve them and couldn’t guess as I hadn’t seen any on restaurant menus.
I’d often wondered about collecting my own and this was yet more fuel for thought but I still found the preparation of snails rather shrouded in mystery and folk law. I’m sure someone had once said to me that I need to remove the spleen or even the stomach! Where are they and how do you remove them? Someone will say next that they will need skinning! But on more research I discovered that Phil Vickery (A well known and respected chef.) had been singing the praise of the Mendip Wallfish And not only that he has, on his web site, a short film on the origin of the Mendip Wallfish and his attempt to get them back on the menus of local restaurants. After this I just had (In the words of Cpt. Jack Aubrey RN) to “Grasp the nettle by the horns” and go and collect my own snails ready for purging. (See links for recipe.)
Above: Collected wallfish in an aerated plastic container ready for purging with carrot.
Above: Fifty wallfish that has been purged and washed ready for cooking.
I collected my wallfish from around my garden and also around my works. The ones from work definitely needed to be purged as the may well have feasted on local poisonous plants such as Hemlock and Ivy. I placed one hundred wallfish in a plastic container with a snap on lid that had holes drilled in it. For them to eat I gave a sliced up carrot which, after four or five days, stared to show that it had passed through the wallfish.
I knew I would be Ok eating wallfish but I was worried about whether my wife, Jacky, would enjoy them. She had once eaten one in France as a teenager and, as teenagers are apt to do, exclaimed that they were disgusting. But she said she’d have another go. Imagine my surprise when she appeared to be eating them faster than I was!
How did we find them? Delicious! Not at all what we thought (slimy or rubbery like welks) but with a fine texture and definitely better than the French recipe. Here, I believe, the English have stole a march on the French. Next time we intend to make some slight alterations to the recipe to make it our own: More cayenne pepper, more seasoning and perhaps a tiny little bit of garlic.
This is going to be a regular with us and we thoroughly recommend it. And they are so much easier to catch than rabbits of pigeons!
NOTE: I believe the French save the largest and best shells for reuse. Presumably boiling them again then baking them dry and sterile in an oven. If you have chickens you can do the same and grind them up in a mortar to add to their ground oyster shells. Our chickens love them as I think the shells retain a little of the dish’s flavour!
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Above: Wallfish dunked in boiling water for about a minute to quickly kill them.
Above: After placing in a colander they are given a quick wash in cold water.
Above: Using a fondu fork each wallfish is twisted out of its shell.
Above: Adding the cider which was bottled that day. Along with the other ingredients to the wallfish.
Above: Wallfish simmering in the stock and the empty shells put onto boil to clean them
Above: Herbs mixed and being chopped up in preparation for adding to the soft butter.
Above: First a little of the herb butter goes into the shell, then the wallfish and finishing off with a little herb butter.
Above: Ready for the oven. They went in after the home made bread came out.
This update: Saturday, 20 November 2010
As we had picked one hundred wallfish and eaten fifty we took the other fifty on holiday with us. (That’s the beauty of wallfish; provide all they need they’ll keep for a long time.) It was no holiday for the wallfish though. We had these as a welcome meal at our remote self catering cottage in Porthallow. As mentioned above I added to the butter and herb mix some chopped dried chillies to give a noticeable heat and a crushed small clove of garlic just to give a hint and some freshly grated black pepper. Very nice! But, fifteen wallfish is really sufficient as the butter is rather rich.
This update: Sunday, 28 November 2010
MY RECIPE:
My recipe is the same as Phil’s upto the butter but in case you can’t link to his page here’s how to cook twenty five Wallfish.
Once purged (about one week) give them a good clean while you have a pan of water on the hob coming upto boil. Place the Wallfish in a sieve or colander and dunk them in the boiling water for about one minute.
Take the wallfish from their shells using a “pointy thing” such as a fondu fork. Spin the fork slowly in the fingers to extricate the whole wallfish from the shell. Place wallfish in a pan with a chopped small carrot and small onion then cover with cider of your choice. Simmer for about one hour or till tender. Sieve and remove any bits of vegetable. At the same time put the empty shells onto boil in fresh salted water for five minutes, rinse in cold water and repeat with fresh salted water three times to clean them. Give them a good final shake in a sieve or colander to make sure all the water is out of the shells then dry in an oven.
THE BUTTER:
For twenty five wallfish you will need:
1/4 lb (120g) of soft salted butter
Tsp of chopped chervil or hedge parsley (garden parsley will substitute)
Tsp of chopped dill
1/8 tsp ground fennel seed
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper or finely chopped chilli to taste.
very small clove of crushed garlic
Fresh grated black pepper to taste
Once all the ingredients are mixed well into the butter take a shell and place a little of the butter inside a shell and feed the wallfish back into the shell from whence it came. This is where it is beneficial to have all the wallfish the same size! Finish off the wallfish with extra butter smoothed over the entrance of the shell sealing in the wallfish. Once they are all done pack in an oven proof dish with the entrance of the shells uppermost and place in a very hot pre heated oven till the butter is bubbling well.
Serve with plenty of fresh crusty bread to mop up the juices. MARVELLOUS!
