It’s during this period we usually go snail hunting. We start out very early in the morning between 12 – 3 am with our baskets to see if we’d get lucky and on a very good day, we could get as much as 40 snails each. They are commonly found on banana/plantain trees.
Luckily for me, I found several today though they were not as large as the normal Congo meat but mature enough to eat. Most times we use them for soup recipes such as vegetable soup, Egusi soup, Okra, ogbono soup, stews & sauces or as an appetizer in form of peppered snail kebab. If I had my way, I’d have it every day of the week but that would be too expensive since it’s really pricey in the Lagos market (One could go for as much as 250 naira and you cannot just buy 1 cos it’s sold in sets of 5 or 6). I might have to say such luxury is best enjoyed in the village where everything runs free and wild.
For the purpose of this post; I’d be showing you how to clean and prepare them and later on I’d show you how to prepare peppered snails at home. With the amount of snails I usually find around, I guess I might have to start a snail farm in Lagos really soon because it’s easier and cheaper to set up than fish or poultry farms besides, snail farming is a big and lucrative business for those who know the right route.
A hammer / Iron rod
Lime/ Alum
Water
When preparing snails, its either you break the shells with a hammer or remove the snails from their shells with an iron rod specially designed for the purpose. The difference? One is messy and the other isn’t so messy. Either way, you’d still get the slugs out.
Directions:::
Step 3: Slice the limes into two and squeeze the juice over the snails while rubbing at the same time to remove the slime
Step 5: Rinse severally with clean water till all the slime is cleaned off completely and the snails are firm.
The snails can now be used in any meal of your choice.
Nutritional Info:
