Lumache con Gorgonzola -- Snails with Gorgonzola Cheese

Instructions

Prepare compound butter as follows:
Rinse and dry about 1/3 cup Italian parsley leaves, omitting stems. Place parsley leaves along with 3 cloves garlic into a blender. With blender on high, add 1/3 pound butter a small piece at a time. Blend until a smooth paste forms. Stop blender and scrape butter mixture from the side of
the blender occasionally. To this mixture add 2 egg yolks and 3/4 pound of gorgonzola, broken into small pieces, and added slowly to the running blender. Scrape the mixture into a small bowl and refrigerate for approximately 1/2 hour.

Meanwhile, saute mushroom caps in a small amount of butter for 4-5 minutes. When mushroom caps are done, begin to assemble the Babbaluci.

In a snail dish (usually ceramic with indentations for the snails), place, first a mushroom cap, then a 1/2 teaspoon of compound butter into each indentation. Top this with a snail in each indentation, then follow with another teaspoon of compound butter. Make sure each snail is covered. Place the completed dishes into a 400°F preheated oven for approximately 10-12 minutes or until the butter is bubbling.

Serve with ample crusty bread to “sop” up the butter and gorgonzola compound cheese.

Author's Comments

This is a variation on the old standby of the French, Escargot Bourguignonne. Only the Italians add some great tasting Gorgonzola Cheese to the dish and make it overwhelming to the palate. Like it’s French cousin, the dish deserves a lot of crusty bread to soak up that delicious compound butter with gorgonzola. The Sicilian’s use the word
Babbaluci for snails. It is slang to Sicily, or more correctly, the Sicilian dialect.


Originally published in my: The “Old Country” Italian Cookbook, by Donald J.P. La Marca

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