Escargots à la Bordelaise

The original recipe starts with: ‘First, catch the snails. Then starve and purge them for three days.’ If you are in the know, you can buy them alive in certain markets, starved and ready-purged. All you have to do is murder them in boiling vegetable stock then rinse off the foam, and they are ready for the recipe. Simple really.

Happily, mine come in jars from a small producer in Provence - dead, shelled, poached and preserved in a light herb broth. You will easily find them like t