Eat Invasive Species: Mysterysnail Fettuccine

Ingredients:
50 LIVE Chinese Mysterysnails, identification and collection is described at invasivore.org
4 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 package (10 oz) fettuccine noodles

Preparing Snails for Cooking

Place LIVE Mysterysnails in a bucket of clean water for 24-48 hours without food to purge their tiny guts. Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil, add snails, and boil for 15 minutes. Next, drain the snails and allow them to cool. Use a knife to pry the "trap door" of the shell open and, with a tight grasp on the trap door, pull the snail out of its shell. Separate the foot of the snail (the dark meaty part that sticks out of the shell when the snail is crawling around- highlighted in the myserysnail picture ) from the trap door and the rest of the snail guts. The foot is edible; dispose of the rest of the snail.


Directions:
Cook noodles in a large pot of boiling water according to package directions
While pasta boils, melt butter in a pan over medium heat then add snails and minced garlic. Stir often for 15 minutes (Remember: snails MUST be cooked thoroughly before human consumption!)
Drain pasta and toss with snail-butter-garlic sauce

Comments

[aeray]

I third AG and Kman. While invasivore.org might be my favorite new site (keep it up), I too think that you should utilize the step-by-step format of Instructables to a fuller extent.

[Kozz]

I'd like to echo aeray's suggestion. I'd like to read more about how to prepare the snails (with photos), how (or whether?) you extract them from their shells prior to cooking, how you wash them, and how one can tell when the snail is properly cooked (but not overcooked).

I'm looking forward to reading more, and thanks.

[invasivore]

Kozz,
I appreciate the feedback. We'll try and use steps and more pictures in the future, I added more details for preparing the snails, though, so I hope it helps. Alas, when we made the dish we didn't take pictures for all the steps like we should have. We'll take some next time we make this dish.

[invasivore]

Thanks for all the input everyone! I really appreciate it. We're hoping to be putting up more recipes like this in the future, and we'll definitely try and do better.

[AndyGadget]

I agree with Kiteman here. This would be a lot better if you gave more detail about collecting, cleaning and preparing them.

We get a lot of edible snails near where I live, which the Romans brought over to Britain in the first century BC.  I didn't realise they were a protected species until I saw the Wikipedia article just now. (I never have eaten them - Tempted, yes, but they're just a bit too . . . snaily.)

[Kiteman]

This would be better as a step-by-step instructable, then you could also explain and show how to collect the snails and remove them from their shells.