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Recipe for "snail-pizza"

NAME

     SNAIL-PIZZA - 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''-of what pizza
     would have tasted like if it had  been  invented  in  Rennes
     instead  of  in  Naples. I concocted this dish for the occa-
     sion, and it was a success.  If you  aren't  sure  you  like
     escargot, this is not the dish to experiment with!

INGREDIENTS (1 large pizza)

     1 recipe  French bread dough (Craig Claiborne's French bread
               recipe works well.)
     300 g     small French snails (The smaller the better.  Bur-
               gundy snails taste best to me.)
     50 g      dried chanterelle mushrooms
     700 g     raclette cheese (shredded).
     250 ml    tomato sauce
     2 cloves  fresh garlic
     30 ml     fresh parsley
     220 g     butter

PROCEDURE

          (1)  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.
          (2)  Preheat the oven to 220 deg. C.  Prepare the dried
               mushrooms  according  to  published recipes (soak,
               wash, cut, resoak, wash, drain).
          (3)  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,  2.5 ml salt, and ground
               black pepper to taste.
          (4)  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 in the preheated oven for
               10  minutes.  Take them out, and drain the cooking
               butter from the snails.
          (5)  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.
          (6)  Bake at 220 deg. C in the top rack for 12  minutes
               (bottom rack will burn the crust).

NOTES

     The first time I made this recipe I made it with morel mush-
     rooms.  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 gro-
     ceries 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.

RATING

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

CONTRIBUTOR

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