Snails in a Piemontese style

By John, 15 February, 2025
Region
Italy
Description

"Piedmontese Snails"This is like Snails in the Burgundy Style (Escargot) from the other side of the Alps. The Piedmont is also a wine growing region, famous for well-known wines such as Barolo, Barbaresco, Barbera, Gavi, Moscato d'Asti, and more. All of those grape leaves have long produced a quantity of vineyard snails that the Italians prepare in their own way, also with a garlic-parsley-butter but enlivened into a pesto with walnuts and an anchovy.  

You can serve these fancy, in snail shells as shown here set in a deviled-egg plate, or without the shells in a snail dish (a simple plate with depressions to hold the snail butter and snails, or just in a serving dish just big enough to hold everything.

Yield
8 Servings
Preparation time
10 minutes
Cooking time
30 minutes
Total time
40 minutes
Ingredients
850 g Snails (One jar)
2 c Water
1 c Dry White Wine
1 Onion (finely chopped)
1 Bay Leaf
1 pn Thyme
1 c Chicken Stock
2 T chopped walnuts
1 bn Parsley, Flat-Leaf (chopped)
5 T Butter (Unsalted)
1 Anchovy fillet in oil (chopped)
1 clv Garlic (crushed and chopped)
Instructions
  1. Rinse the snails and put them in a saucepan with 2 cups of water and 1 cup of dry white wine. Bring the water to a gentle boil and let the snails cook for about 15 minutes.
  2. In a skillet, melt the butter and saute the onion for 3-4 minutes, then add a bay leaf, a pinch of chopped thyme, and the snails and finally pour in two ladles of stock. Leave to cook for about an hour, then remove the snails from the pan and let them cool.
  3. Make a pesto in a mortar or in a small food processor with the walnuts, chopped parsley, butter, the anchovy in oil, and the garlic. Crush well to form a uniform green sauce with the well-mixed ingredients.
  4. Divide the pesto into the depressions of a snail dish (or else in an oven-safe serving dish just big enough to hold everything), then put the snails on top. If you want to serve in snail shells, then put the pesto in the shells after the snails are in place, and be sure to see the note below!
  5. Heat the oven to 425°F and cook the snails for about 10 minutes. Serve hot.

 

Notes

Please see Snails in the Burgundy Style (Escargot) for helpful notes on buying, serving, and cleaning up!

You can buy snail shells to serve them in. The shells make a wonderful presentation, but they're a pain to clean up afterward.

The 850g jar is a lot of snails. If you halve the recipe, make a full recipe of the pesto and freeze half of it for later use, or toss it with pasta. 

Source

Lumache alla Piemontese https://www.lumaroe.it/ricetta-lumache-alla-piemontese/