Garlic, parsley, good butter and a great deal of patience. Notes on the dish people cross the village for.
There is no clever trick to escargots de Bourgogne. There is only butter that has been treated properly.
The parsley is chopped the same morning, never the night before, because parsley cut and left overnight turns and takes the butter with it. The garlic is pounded rather than minced. The butter comes out of the cold an hour ahead so it takes the seasoning evenly.
The part everybody skips
You have to let the finished butter rest. A day is better. It reads flat and slightly harsh straight after mixing, and then it settles into itself and the garlic stops shouting.
They go into the oven very hot and come out bubbling, with bread to follow the butter around the dish. That is the point of the dish, and anybody who tells you otherwise has not had them properly.
Written at L'Étoile, the historic Snouder's Building, Oyster Bay.
