Garden snails with cheese and apple brandy

Name: Garden snails with cheese and apple brandy
Yield: Serves 4
Ingredients: 2–3 dried fennel stalks or 1 tsp fennel seeds; 2–3 dried fennel stalks or 1 tsp fennel seeds; 1 thyme sprig; 2–3 bay leaves; 500 g garden snails; 12 pepper corns; Salt and freshly ground pepper; Small glass of apple brandy; 500 ml full-cream milk or single cream; 500 ml full-cream milk or single cream; 50 g plain flour; 50 g unsalted butter; 50 g hard cheese, grated; 1 tbsp vinegar; Salt and freshly ground pepper

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

A Cook’s Year in a Welsh Farmhouse

By Elisabeth Luard

Published 2011

About

Serve your snails as they do in the Mendips, where the local stock was much improved by descendants of escapees from Roman snail enclosures. If you gather your own, follow the preparation instructions.

Ingredients

500 g garden snails
12 pepper corns
1 thyme sprig

Starter
Pescatarian
Gluten-free

Method

Pop the snails, pre-starved and well washed but still in their shells, in a pot with plenty of cold water, the peppercorns, thyme, bay leaves and fennel. Don’t add salt or the molluscs will carry on frothing. Bring gently to the boil, skim and add a dash of vinegar to collapse the foam, then simmer for 20–30 minutes, till the snail meat is perfectly tender. Drain, winkle each mollusc out with a