Ever tried peppered snails? Or “party” jollof rice with snails? Yum right! We bet your mouth just watered even if only for a little bit.
Well before we teach you how to clean them for cooking, let’s share two facts we bet you didn’t know about this delicious delicacy.
- The world’s smallest land snail could fit through the eye of a needle with a shell 0.03inches tall
- Snail mucus can help improve your skin. Some studies have found that it might be useful to help wounds heal, possibly by triggering an immune response that helps skin cells regenerate.
Now let’s get to the slightly hard part- cleaning them up.
Step 1: Removing the snail from its shell
Hot Water Soak: Soak the snails in hot water. Let them sit for a few minutes, then using (2-pronged) forks, pierce the meat protruding from the largest part of the shell and pull the snail out
It lubricates the interior of the shells and enables snails to easily slip out BUT softens the meat.
OR
Shell Crack: Crack the shell using a mallet or a stone and use a pointed object-fork to push the snail till it comes off the other end.
Step 2: Removing the slime
The following are very effective in cleaning out the slime from snails.
Salt- Simply pour lots of salt into a bowl of shelled snails & rub the salt till the slime is gone.
Garri- Garri works the same way as salt. Pour lots of Garri grains on a bowl of shelled snails and rub till the slime is gone.
Lime & Alum- Cut the lime into quarters then rub all of the snails with the aim of removing all the slime. After which you begin by rubbing the alum over the snail. A combination of lime and alum will definitely give you a squeaky clean result.
We hope that you have found this post about cleaning snails pretty useful. Send us your feedback if there’s any other topic of your interest, we would love to hear from you.
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