Recipe no. 149 from Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale (1909), page 78.
Ingredients
- snails
- white wine
- broth
- bouquet garni
- pepper
- salt
- onion
- carrots
- shallots
- anchovies
- garlic
- parsley
- butter
Preparation
- Cleaning and cooking the snailsClean the snails as described above, boil them about ten minutes, take them out of their shells; dry these and trim your snails as described in the previous article.
- BraisingPut them in a saucepan with half a bottle of white wine and a few spoonfuls of broth; add a bouquet garni, peppercorns, salt, a studded onion and 2 carrots. Let it cook covered and very gently; when they are tender drain them, then put each one back into a shell.
- Preparing the compound butterPut in a bowl 2 or 3 shallots, 2 anchovy fillets, a clove of garlic, a good pinch of parsley, all chopped; season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, add lemon juice after mixing all these ingredients well with 200 grams of good butter.
- FinishingPut a spoonful of this mixture on each snail, arrange them then on an ovenproof dish and brown au gratin in a very hot oven; 5 minutes are enough for this.
Reboul's text
Clean the snails as described above, boil them about ten minutes, take them out of their shells; dry these and trim your snails as described in the previous article. Put them in a saucepan with half a bottle of white wine and a few spoonfuls of broth; add a bouquet garni, peppercorns, salt, a studded onion and 2 carrots. Let it cook covered and very gently; when they are tender drain them, then put each one back into a shell.
Put in a bowl 2 or 3 shallots, 2 anchovy fillets, a clove of garlic, a good pinch of parsley, all chopped; season with salt, pepper and nutmeg, add lemon juice after mixing all these ingredients well with 200 grams of good butter. Put a spoonful of this mixture on each snail, arrange them then on an ovenproof dish and brown au gratin in a very hot oven; 5 minutes are enough for this. Some people add cheese to the mixture, others leave out the anchovy. It is a matter of taste.
Small Provençal glossary for this recipe
Reboul writes in French: no Provençal word appears in this recipe, apart from the dish's name itself. The table below gives the Provençal equivalents of the words used, in mistralian spelling, translated by Lingua Nostra. Each form is attested in our Provençal-English dictionary; click to open the entry.
| Provençal | English |
|---|---|
| cacalouso | snails |
| vin | white wine |
| amaneu | bouquet garni |
| pebre | pepper |
| cebo | onion |
| garroto | carrots |
| eschaloto | shallots |
| anchoio | anchovies |
| aiet | garlic |
| juvert | parsley |
Source: Jean-Baptiste Reboul, La Cuisinière provençale, Marseille, 1909, recipe no. 149, page 78. Public domain. Transcription, formatting and Provençal glossary by Lingua Nostra.