Snails
Also called: giant African land snail, Achatina, escargots géants, land snails
The snails used in Cameroonian cooking are giant African land snails, much bigger than the escargots of French cooking. Once cleaned, the meat is firm and slightly chewy, with a mild taste that soaks up the sauce. They are cooked in stews and in pepper soup.
Lumo has one recipe that uses them: Afang soup, a South-West dish where they cook with okazi leaves, palm oil, crayfish and periwinkles.
Cleaning them takes some patience. Take the meat out of the shell, remove the dark gut, then rub the meat with lime juice, alum or a handful of garri to get rid of the slime. Rinse several times until the meat no longer feels sticky. Many sellers offer snails already cleaned, which saves time. Cook them soon after buying, or freeze them. Long cooking makes them tough, so add them towards the end. Abroad, African grocery stores often sell giant snail meat frozen and already cleaned. If you can't find any, the soup works well with meat or fish instead.
Recipes with this ingredient
- Afang Soup Sud-Ouest · 1 hr 30 min
A rich Calabar-style soup: pounded afang (okazi) leaves and waterleaf cooked with goat meat, dried fish, periwinkle and palm oil.