Escargot – Rosemary and the Goat

Lobster and Shrimp and Snails Oh My!

Ooh la la! Until we meet again!

After my French dinner party last week I knew I had to post one of the recipes and the escargot was the easiest thing on the menu.

The first snail that I ever ate was on a cruise that started in Amsterdam and made it’s way to France, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, and Gibraltar. On this cruise I tasted my first escargot and my first really good paté (now, my son Paul’s paté is the best ever). And, at every stop we tried all the local cuisines. After that first taste of escargot and paté, we ordered both every night for the rest of the cruise.

Fast forward many years and I’ve made escargot several times. We made it once for a Michie French Family Feast and several other times when I could find the snails. Along the way, I have learned to buy my French snails from Amazon. Typically escargot is baked and served with French bread to sop up all the garlicky butter. (Papa G hates the word sop, but that is what you do if you want a good bite.)

October 18, 2025 By Sherry

Dessert/ Desserts/ Entree/ Food Stories/ Game

A French Table in the South

Dîner avec des amis! c’était délicieux!

I’ve been wanting to do a Fall French dinner for friends and I wanted my southern influence to be a part of the meal. What better time than in the middle of Round Top’s Fall Antique Show. (WARNING: Long Read)

From the beginning I knew I wanted to make duck confit and my southern twist was going to be the parmesan stone ground grits.

A French 75 made with Empress Gin had to be the cocktail for the ladies and my husband came up with a Southern Manhattan cocktail for the guys. To go with those cocktails I simply used a box or two of Boursin cheese and stuffed it into two tiny pumpkins that I had removed the tops and scooped out the seeds. I drizzled the two pumpkins with some honey and inserted a couple of sage leaves in the top and served this with some sliced fresh figs, assorted crackers and some pistachio nuts and served this on my beautiful Woodlab board. I even bruleed a few fig slices to try with the cheese. “délicieux”.

I went back and forth on the appetizer (“First Taste”) which I wanted to serve as a first course. It was either going to be a mushroom tart or escargot. The escargot was not going to be your ordinary run of the mill escargot; this one had snails, lobster and shrimp. Instead of using French bread to dip into the garlicky/wine butter that melted all over the dishes I baked some puff pastry circles to put on top of each well on the dish. The escargot won over the mushroom turnover. This turned out very nice but timing that with the duck confit was a little stressful.

October 11, 2025 By Sherry

Appetizers/ HotApp

Escargot in Parsley-Garlic Butter

Escargot for Christmas.

Oh, no! not snails. Not those little slimy things that wiggle on the sidewalk that we use to pour salt on when we were kids. Ahh, yes.

Well, they are similar. The ones we prepared for Christmas dinner were Helix snails from France and were nice fat/plump ones. The ones that use to get salted are common brown garden snails and probably not enough meat to even get stuck between your teeth but still edible. Snails are low in fat except, of course, for all the butter you put on them before baking in the oven. This is only my third time making escargot and I think they get better each time I make them. (Don’t use jumbo ones though, that wasn’t my favorite.) I like them garlicky, buttery (of course) and the best crunchy bread I can find.

I first had escargot on a cruise years ago and I remember after eating them one night we ordered 2 orders each every meal for the rest of the cruise. I found my escargot on Amazon because they were much cheaper than the $7.50/can/dozen at my HEB market (and those were the jumbo ones). And I have already reordered them so I would have on hand for a last minute appetizer. They were $16 for 48 snails.

February 25, 2019 By Sherry