ESCARGOT AND CHANTERELLE PIZZA

Servings: 1
Ingredients:

1 x  French bread dough                  2 oz Chanterelle mushrooms,
-(Craig Claiborne's                      -dried
-French bread recipe            1 1/2 lb Raclette cheese,
-works well)                             -shredded
10 oz French snails                       8 oz Tomato sauce
-(the smaller the better;           2    Garlic cloves
-burgundy snails taste              2 T  Parsley, fresh
-best to me)                      1/2 lb Butter

Make the French Bread dough recipe at least 1 day beforehand if you can.
Roll the dough out into the shape of a pizza, put it on a pizza pan,and set
it aside. It will keep in the refrigerator overnight.

Prepare the dried mushrooms according to published recipes (soak, wash,
cut, resoak, wash, drain).

If the snails are too large (larger than a garlic clove), then cut them in
pieces. Drain the snails well. Melt the butter in a baking dish, add the
snails, crushed garlic, about 1/2 salt and ground black pepper to taste.

Put the bread-dough pan on the top rack of the oven and the snails on the
bottom rack of the oven, and cook them both for 10 minutes. Take them out.

Spread the tomato sauce in an even layer on the bread, then sprinkle the
Raclette cheese over it. Add the snails, and then the mushrooms. Sprinkle
with fresh parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Bake at 425 degrees F. in the
top rack for 12 minutes (bottom rack will burn the crust).

NOTES:

* A pizza-like dish smothered in escargot and mushrooms — I was recently
at a potluck party where everyone was asked to bring an interpretation of
‘French pizza,’ what pizza would have tasted like if it had been invented
in Rennes instead of in Naples. I concocted this dish for the occasion, and
it was a success. If you aren’t sure you like escargot, this is not the
dish to experiment with! Servings: 1 large pizza.

* The first time I made this recipe I made it with morel mushrooms. Their
flavor overwhelmed even the garlic snails. It was good, but it didn’t have
the balance I was looking for. Chanterelles seem to fit better. If you’re
unable to find or afford chanterelles, you can substitute Chinese straw
mushrooms, which are available in cans wherever Chinese groceries are sold.
European dried mushrooms seem always to have rocks and dirt in them; Asian
dried mushrooms never do. I guess the Asians wash them better before they
dry them. It’s impossible to get all of the rocks out.

* Raclette cheese is so much better than any other kind of cheese in this
recipe that it is worth looking for. If you absolutely cannot get it, use
fondue cheese or a Gruyere.

* Raw butter also tastes more ‘authentic’ in this recipe. What you really
want to use is Normandy butter, but it’s hard to get in North America. Alta
Dena raw butter is available in California; it makes a noticeable
difference in the flavor of the escargot. I don’t know of any other states
in which it is legal to buy raw butter.

: Difficulty: easy to moderate.
: Time: 30 minutes.
: Precision: approximate measurement OK.

: Brian Reid
: DEC Western Research Laboratory, Palo Alto CA
: reid@decwrl.DEC.COM -or- {ihnp4,ucbvax,decvax,sun,pyramid}!decwrl!reid

: Copyright (C) 1986 USENET Community Trust

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