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Snail Butter! {CtBF}
My first memory of the concept of “snails as food” is the image of a plastic tube of giant snail shells with a tiny can at the bottom that my mother kept in our pantry of my childhood home. (See the tiny picture at the right.) I’m not sure where it came from, but most likely, it was a souvenir, either brought home by my parents from a trip or bestowed on them by travelling friends. To the best of my knowledge, no one ever ate the snails inside the can, but the tube sat there year after year.
Fast forward to adulthood. I know I’ve eaten snails once or twice in French restaurants, but I couldn’t tell you where or when. What I can tell you is that the most memorable thing about them is the delicious garlic butter that is the essence of escargot. Sure, the butter coats the chewy snails and makes them marginally appealing. However, sopping up any remaining butter with fresh bread is the main event.
The name of this week’s recipe for Cook the Book Fridays, Green Beans in Snail Butter, was filled with intrigue for me. Based on the title alone, I assumed that snails would be incorporated into some sort of compound butter to be served over the green beans. Fussy and complicated on the face of it. In reality, the recipe is so much simpler. What we’re actually making is that amazing butter the snails are traditionally served in. Instead of providing a bath for snails, green vegetables are immersed instead.
Desperate for spring, I had picked up asparagus earlier in the week. I decided to go with what I had on hand. I cut the asparagus spears into green bean length pieces and steamed them.
I also discovered that all the heads of garlic I had were spoiled. I had some minced garlic from Penzey’s that I had picked up when I had a coupon for a free jar. I used this instead. I found that the freeze-dried pieces added a subtle texture, and the garlic seemed to resist the urge to burn that often happens when I freshly minced garlic.
Minced garlic sautéed in butter with a generous amount of freshly chopped parsley is about all there is to it before seasoning with salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. I tossed the asparagus in the fragrant butter and Voila!
I will definitely make Snail Butter again when I feel like dressing up green vegetables or maybe fish or seafood. I count this recipe as yet another winner.
The asparagus in snail butter was the perfect side for the New York Times’ Roasted Provencal Chicken.
You can find the recipe here on Serious Eats or on page 222 of David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen. If you haven’t picked up a copy of this book, I highly recommend it. There are so many delicious recipes that I’ve added to my repertoire. To see what my blogging friends thought of snail butter, check their links here on the Cook the Book Fridays website.
Bonus note: Last night, I saw my friend Lisa of Hawley’s Food Path at our garden club’s meeting. We made beaded dragonfly garden ornaments. Here’s a picture of Lisa and me with our finished projects.
Lisa (right) and Me (left) with our dragonfly ornaments.
Happy French Friday! See you in April!
Triple Play {CtBF}
I’m woefully behind on posts for Cook the Book Fridays, so in addition to this week’s Caramel Pork Ribs, I’ll catch you up on two other recipes I made from David Lebovitz’s My Paris Kitchen.
First the ribs… After a seemingly early spring thaw, winter came back with a vengeance bringing super cold temperatures and another load of snow. Ribs at our house are typically slow-cooked outside in a wood-fueled smoker, but not during the winter. When I checked out at the grocery store with my rack of spareribs, the cashier commented that only a devoted “super-griller” would be willing to stand outside that day and cook ribs. I was happy to respond that I’d be making ribs in the oven!
These ribs cook in a savory caramel sauce that starts by melting sugar, a step that used to terrify me, but I am slowly becoming more comfortable with. The sauce is rounded out with some beer (I used stout) and bourbon along with other savory ingredients.
The ribs, cut into 3- or 4-rib portions, are coated in the sauce and then baked in the pot for a couple of hours, turning occasionally. The pork became meltingly tender, practically falling of the bone.
My helper!
I opted to serve these “French-Style” with plain white rice, though when Howard read the open page of the cookbook, he wished I’d chosen the suggested Mashed Potatoes. Even though mashed potatoes probably would have been tasty, I thought the rice was the perfect platform for spooning some the sticky sauce.
We both enjoyed the ribs. It’s exciting have new winter option to cook when the smoker is buried under a pile of snow.
Two weeks ago, I made the Wheatberry Salad with Radicchio and Root Vegetables. We had just returned from a week in Florida, and though I made this dish on time, I couldn’t get it together to write about it.
I love roasted root vegetables. Fall and winter, a steady supply of them fill the refrigerator and a “make shift” root cellar. I’m getting to the end of my stockpile, but I roasted a combination of watermelon radish, celery root, parsnips, and carrots, a colorful medley. Radicchio is something I’ve only eaten in salad, so throwing chopped radicchio on top of the root vegetables in the oven for a few minutes to wilt was a new trick.
My salad was based on farro because I’m enamored with Trader Joe’s 10-Minute Farro. The farro is parboiled so it really does cook in just 10 minutes, though I forgot to add a bay leaf when I cooked it for this recipe.
The farro and vegetables are tossed together with a dressing made tangy by the addition of pomegranate molasses. You’ll notice that I didn’t add the pomegranate seeds. Pomegranate seeds in this salad would have violated Howard’s rule prohibiting the mixing of fruit with savory. Also, pomegranates just went out of season here, so I couldn’t find any anyway.
I served this salad as a side with roasted chicken thighs. Another hit that will be repeated.
Finally, there’s the Merveilleux, on the schedule back in February. This was a dessert that just didn’t want to get made. David Lebovitz challenges anyone who doesn’t like meringues because they’ve never tried a merveilleux. I like meringues. The problem is that I’m not a big fan of whipped cream. I really dragged my feet on this one. When I first set out to made these last month, I was out of confectioners’ sugar. Earlier this week, I restocked and made the meringues. When I got ready to make the whipped cream filling/coating, I found that the whipping cream was spoiled. Off to the store again.
I whipped up the cream with a tinge of espresso powder, making it reminiscent of tiramisu. To construct the merveilleux, I sandwiched the cream filling between two meringues, slathered the outsides with more cream, and rolled them in chocolate, before chilling them for a couple of hours. This is one recipe where I wish the book had included a picture. I still have no idea what merveilleux are supposed to look like.
Howard renamed these “Merv Griffins” because it’s easier to say. Neither of us were fans, obviously because we don’t care for whipped cream. I made a half batch of five, so hopefully I can find three friends to share the remainder with before they get soggy.
If you don’t have My Paris Kitchen in your cookbook collection yet, you should add it. So many of these recipes are winners. If you want to try any of these recipes yourself, you can find Pork Caramel Ribs on page 187, the Wheatberry Salad on page 240, and Merveilleux on page 281.
To see what my friends thought of these recipes, check out their posts from Cook the Book Fridays.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Erin go bragh!
A Plateful of Happiness 