Geoduck and apple snails are familiar freshwater snails to everyone. This type of snail is just as delicious as various types of sea snails. Let’s go to the kitchen to prepare geoduck and apple snails into a delicious steamed dish in two extremely simple and easy ways: steamed snails with pepper and Thai-style steamed snails with lemongrass.
1. Steamed Snails with Pepper
Preparation
15 minutes
Cooking
15 minutes
Difficulty
Medium
Ingredients for Steamed Snails with Pepper For 2 people
Geoduck 300 gr Lemongrass 2 stalks Chili peppers 2 pieces Black pepper 1 teaspoon
Ingredient Image
How to Cook Steamed Snails with Pepper
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Prepare Ingredients
Wash the snails and soak them in rice water for 1 – 2 hours so that they can expel all the dirt as quickly as possible. If you do not have rice water, you can soak the snails in cold water and add about 1 chili pepper for 1 – 2 hours to clean them.
Prepare the other ingredients as follows:
- Slice the chili peppers thinly.
- Clean the lemongrass and cut it diagonally into thin slices.
- Crush the black pepper.
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Prepare the dipping sauce
Add 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of white pepper, 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce, 2 tablespoons of fish sauce, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 1 tablespoon of ground pepper, and an additional 2 tablespoons of water into a bowl.
Mix the ingredients well to create a flavorful dipping sauce for the snails.
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Steam the snails
Place a pot on the stove, turn on medium heat, and add the prepared seasoning mixture into the pot. Then, add the snails into the pot and mix well to ensure the snails absorb the seasoning.
Add the lemongrass and chili that you have prepared into the pot, mix one more time, and cook for about 15 minutes until the snails are cooked.
Once the snails are cooked, transfer them to a plate.
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Final product
Steamed snails with pepper are delicious and attractive, with a crunchy texture and the fragrant spicy flavor of pepper. Enjoy the snails with a bit of sweet and sour fish sauce for an even more delightful experience.
2. Steamed apple snails and field snails Thai style
Preparation
20 minutes
Cooking
15 minutes
Difficulty
Medium
Ingredients for Steamed apple snails and field snails Thai style For 4 people
Field snails 1 kg Lemongrass 3 stalks Chili 6 fruits Ginger 2 pieces Calamondin 10 fruits Garlic 1 bulb Kaffir lime leaves 5 gr Basil 10 gr Palm sugar 2 tablespoons
Image of ingredients
How to cook Steamed apple snails and field snails Thai style
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Prepare the ingredients
After buying the snails, wash them thoroughly and soak them in rice water for 1 – 2 hours so that the snails can expel all the dirt quickly. If you don’t have rice water, you can soak the snails in cold water and add about 3 – 4 chilies for 1 – 2 hours to clean them.
Other ingredients are prepared as follows:
- Lemongrass cut diagonally into thin slices.
- Ginger peeled and sliced thinly.
- Coriander cleaned, roots and leaves separated.
- Garlic peeled, calamondin cut in half, juice extracted.
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Steamed Snails
Prepare a pot of boiling water to steam the snails. Place half of the sliced lemongrass and ginger at the bottom of the steamer. Next, add the snails to the pot and top with the remaining lemongrass, ginger, basil leaves, and lime leaves.
Steam the snails for about 5 – 10 minutes until cooked. Once the snails are cooked and fragrant, remove them and enjoy.
Note: Reserve about 1 tablespoon of lemongrass, 3 – 4 slices of ginger, and 4 – 5 lime leaves to make the sauce.
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Make the Sauce
Add 1 peeled garlic clove, sliced ginger, 2 chili peppers, and cilantro roots into a mortar and grind them finely.
Then, transfer the mixture to a bowl, add 1 tablespoon of sliced lemongrass, 2 tablespoons of palm sugar, 3 tablespoons of calamansi juice, 3 tablespoons of fish sauce, and 6 tablespoons of water.
Chop the lime leaves and cilantro and add them to the bowl, mixing the sauce until the sugar dissolves and the ingredients are well combined.
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Final Product
Thai-style steamed snails are delicious and attractive with the rich sour and spicy flavor of the sauce and the crispy deliciousness of the snails. Enjoy this delicious snail dish right away!
How to choose delicious escargots
- You should choose live snails. Gently touch the snail’s shell, if the snail tightly closes its shell, then it is alive; otherwise, it means the snail is dead.
- Live snails usually have a light mud smell, not a foul odor. Dead snails typically have a very unpleasant rotten smell.
- Put the snails in a basin of water. If you see the spiral side of the snail turning upwards and it feels light when held, it means the snail is dead. You should remove them to avoid affecting the other snails as well as the quality of the dish.
- Fat, delicious snails usually have the shell edge close to the outer edge of the shell. Snails with shells that are deeply recessed are thin and not delicious.
How to clean escargots
- You should soak the escargots in a metal basin because snails will expel all the dirt when in contact with metal. If you do not have a metal basin, you can add a few metal utensils like knives, forks,… to the basin and continue to soak the snails for about 1 – 2 hours.
- It is advisable to soak the snails in rice water so that they can expel all the dirt quickly. If you do not have rice water prepared in time, you can soak them in cold water and add about 3 – 4 chili peppers for about 1 – 2 hours.
- You can also soak the snails in a mixture of lemon, vinegar, and chili. Simply mix these ingredients together and soak the snails, and they will quickly expel the mud to be processed.
How to reduce the slime of snails when cooking
- If you use live snail meat to directly prepare dishes, you need to rub the snail meat with vinegar, lemon, or a little salt. This way, the snails can be cleaned of slime and significantly reduce the fishy smell when cooked.
- When boiling snails, you should boil them together with aromatic ingredients like ginger, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves,… to reduce the fishy smell of the snails. You can also add a bit of fermented rice to the boiling snails; fermented rice can effectively reduce the fishy smell of the snails.
- You should place the aromatic ingredients at the bottom of the pot before adding the snails on top to boil. When boiling, only add about half a small cup of water so that the snails do not release too much water and retain their sweetness when cooked.
Note when eating snails
You should only eat the upper part of the snail and not the intestines to avoid intestinal diseases and parasites.
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With 2 very simple and easy-to-follow recipes, pepper steamed snails and Thai steamed snails are very delicious. What are you waiting for? Try cooking them right away.
*Refer to the images and recipes from 2 YouTube channels What to Buy Where? and SNail House / love yummy foods.
