I’ll be making escargots for an appetiser tonight. (Between the two of us, they’ll last about 30 seconds.) Butter, garlic, cream, sh… Oops. No sherry. All I have is a bottle of sauvignon blanc, and some marsala that may or may not still be good. (I made tiramisu with it a long time ago.)
So. Do you think the blanc will work in the snail sauce?
Should be fine.
In fact, I’d normally be inclined to use a regular rather than a fortified wine for such a dish anyway.
I’ve always used dry sherry. The SO likes my escargots. Maybe using something different will make them even better. 
Thanks.
I agree that it should be fine. I would have picked a sauvignon blanc over a sherry to sautee them in anyway.
It’ll probably be fine, although I think Marsala is closer to Sherry in that they’re both fortified and aged, while a Sauvignon Blanc is a relatively young wine.
Is it cooking sherry? If so, I would definitely go for the Sauvignon. Cooking sherry is pretty heavily salted of my taste. A good rule of thumb: If you would not drink the wine from a glass, why would you want to put it in the food you are cooking?
A rule I follow.
I don’t see any reason the sauvignon blanc wouldn’t work. A dry vermouth should work, too.
Marsala should keep for a long time, but why the heck were you making tiramisu with it? You want brandy for tiramisu. With your leftover marsala, you want to make zabaglione.
The marsala was for the zabaglione that goes into the tiramisu.
The snails turned out great. The best ever, I think. The SO mentioned again that they’re better than the ones we get in restaurants. So here’s how I make them, in case anyone is interested:
[ul][li]Drain a can of 12 snails, rinse the snails, and put them into a bowl and cover them with cold water. Let them sit for five minutes or so. [/li][li]From a fresh head of garlic, pick off two good-sized cloves and mince them finely. [/li][li]Remove the stems from 12 white button mushrooms. Wash the caps. [/li][li]Drain the water from the snails and pat them dry. [/li][li]Melt six tablespoons of butter (I use unsalted) and sauté the garlic, mushroom caps, snails, and kosher salt to taste, until the caps start to get a little tender.[/li][li]Whisk together one tablespoon flour, some ground black pepper, some tarragon or parsley (I was out of tarragon, so I used parsley this time), ⅓ cup white wine, and ⅓ cup cream. I add the cream last, so that the flour isn’t lumpy.[/li][li]Add the liquid mixture to the pan and cook until it thickens.[/li][li]Put a mushroom cap upside-down into each hole of your escargot dish(es). (Or put them into into an 8" x 8" baking dish.) Put a snail on top of each one. Spoon the rest of the sauce over the snails. Top with freshly-grated parmesan cheese.[/li][*]Bake in a preheated 350ºF oven for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is turning brown.[/ul]
[quote=“Johnny_L.A, post:11, topic:677173”]
The marsala was for the zabaglione that goes into the tiramisu.
The snails turned out great. The best ever, I think. The SO mentioned again that they’re better than the ones we get in restaurants. So here’s how I make them, in case anyone is interested:
[ul][li]Drain a can of 12 snails, rinse the snails, and put them into a bowl and cover them with cold water. Let them sit for five minutes or so. [/li][li]From a fresh head of garlic, pick off two good-sized cloves and mince them finely. [/li][li]Remove the stems from 12 white button mushrooms. Wash the caps. [/li][li]Drain the water from the snails and pat them dry. [/li][li]Melt six tablespoons of butter (I use unsalted) and sauté the garlic, mushroom caps, snails, and kosher salt to taste, until the caps start to get a little tender.[/li][li]Whisk together one tablespoon flour, some ground black pepper, some tarragon or parsley (I was out of tarragon, so I used parsley this time), ⅓ cup white wine, and ⅓ cup cream. I add the cream last, so that the flour isn’t lumpy.[/li][li]Add the liquid mixture to the pan and cook until it thickens.[/li][li]Put a mushroom cap upside-down into each hole of your escargot dish(es). (Or put them into into an 8" x 8" baking dish.) Put a snail on top of each one. Spoon the rest of the sauce over the snails. Top with freshly-grated parmesan cheese.[/li][li]Bake in a preheated 350ºF oven for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is turning brown.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Sounds great Johnny! We usually buy them pre-stuffed in brioche when we get jonesing for them, but I’m going to take a stab at your recipe.
Just a question - where do you find canned snails? Is it more of a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s item, or do you think most supermarkets would have them? Are they over where the canned seafood and tuna is?
I used to get the Escargots en Brioche at Trader Joe’s. Haven’t seen them in a long time. Too much bread; not enough snails.
I got the canned snails from The Market, which is a small supermarket chain up here. They also have them at Cost Cutter, another small chain. Fred Meyer did not carry them. There’s an upscale little market near the office, and they carry them. I won’t go to Whole Foods, and I haven’t seen them or looked for them at Trader Joe’s.
So I would say to check out your local supermarkets. If they have them, they should be in the same section as the tuna, anchovies, sardines, smoked oysters, SPAM, Underwood Devilled Ham, etc.
There should be a certain caveat to that; more like “if it’s not something that’s reasonable for someone to drink, you probably shouldn’t cook with it.”
In other words, if you typically drink $15 and up wines, it doesn’t mean that you need to cook with that level of wine. Two-Buck-Chuck is fine for cooking, while “cooking” wines are typically sub-par wines salted enough to make them undrinkable, and sold in grocery stores as ingredients instead of alcoholic beverages. There are two issues with that which make it poor for cooking- sub par wine, and an unknown amount of salt involved.
It’s fine for drinking, too. 
(OK, not ‘fine’ as in ‘fine wine’; but it tastes good.)
LMK how they come out. 
Nothing wrong with Two Buck Chuck! I was just trying to make the point that the rule of thumb is “it should be wine suitable for drinking” not “if you wouldn’t drink it, you shouldn’t cook with it” because plenty of people drink relatively expensive wines that will be lost in most cooking applications because heat drives away the aromatics and other compounds that would make the wine distinctive when not cooked.
I remember seeing a can of snails, and attached to the top of the can was a clear plastic tube filled with the empty shells! haven’t seen that in a while, except in a gourmet imports store. Now I’m going to look in the canned fish section and see if I can find them…
I used to eat snails until I realized that the only reason I ate them was for the taste of the sauce. The snails really add nothing to the dish, as far as I can tell, and I was eating --you know–snails. I spend the money on scallops now, when I’m wanting a nice wine sauce dish.
Some places have them with the shells, some do not, and some carry both. The shells increase the price by about 50%. Elegant, but I’ve no time to fill them only to empty them once the dish is done. Better to go shell-less, IMO.
I’ve tried to convince myself that I was just in it for the sauce, but I like the flavour and texture of the snails. FWIW, I tend to eat the snails and mushroom separately. (The sauce would also be good with prawns.)
[quote=“Johnny_L.A, post:11, topic:677173”]
The marsala was for the zabaglione that goes into the tiramisu.
The snails turned out great. The best ever, I think. The SO mentioned again that they’re better than the ones we get in restaurants. So here’s how I make them, in case anyone is interested:
[ul][li]Drain a can of 12 snails, rinse the snails, and put them into a bowl and cover them with cold water. Let them sit for five minutes or so. [/li][li]From a fresh head of garlic, pick off two good-sized cloves and mince them finely. [/li][li]Remove the stems from 12 white button mushrooms. Wash the caps. [/li][li]Drain the water from the snails and pat them dry. [/li][li]Melt six tablespoons of butter (I use unsalted) and sauté the garlic, mushroom caps, snails, and kosher salt to taste, until the caps start to get a little tender.[/li][li]Whisk together one tablespoon flour, some ground black pepper, some tarragon or parsley (I was out of tarragon, so I used parsley this time), ⅓ cup white wine, and ⅓ cup cream. I add the cream last, so that the flour isn’t lumpy.[/li][li]Add the liquid mixture to the pan and cook until it thickens.[/li][li]Put a mushroom cap upside-down into each hole of your escargot dish(es). (Or put them into into an 8" x 8" baking dish.) Put a snail on top of each one. Spoon the rest of the sauce over the snails. Top with freshly-grated parmesan cheese.[/li][li]Bake in a preheated 350ºF oven for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is turning brown.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Next time, add the flour to the butter and let it cook for a minute or two until it’s a light tan before adding the wine and cream. It’ll remove the raw taste from the flour and add a subtle nuttiness.
