Limpets!

Makunouchi

Makunouchi

Makunouchi

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Brighton
So, I spent the afternoon just east of Brighton at the base of the chalk cliffs, clambering about on the rocks in the sun with my tshirt off, listening to music, and most importantly... collecting Limpets! They were super easy to collect by just sharply sliding a chisel underneath.

Here they are, washed and scrubbed and sitting in some clean salt water. I think I'll leave them in overnight to cycle the clean water through themselves before I boil them tomorrow. This is a total experiment by the way, I've never tried this before!



I thought I'd stick the picture and the story up on here in case anyone was interested as to what they tasted/looked like etc, and how to eat them, all of which will be revealed tomorrow with more pictures!

The only problem is, after washing them and setting them up in the casserole dish, I kind of like them, I don't want to have to boil them alive :(
 
HeadlessChicken said:
Looks fab mate, keep us updated!

I like razor clams too, I collect em and cook em in sea water on the beach. Yummeh!
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Both, limpets don't look the nicest think it's the colour, il be interested to hear what they are like. Don't you have to be careful where you pick them from, can't remember why though.. Tried razor clams I Spain and thought they where great.
 
Just had a look around, seems they go chewy extremely fast.

Etymology: Old English lempedu from medieval Latin lampreda
Sub-class: Prosobranchia (gill-breathing snails)

Size: approximately 5 cm

Limpets are univalve gastropod mollusks, extremely common on European coastal rocks. They have a characteristic recognizable Chinese-hat shape with a very rough shell.

Cooking tips

Wash the limpets well; insert the point of a knife to open the shell and detach the mollusk;
remove any dark sections; place the limpet on a work surface and tap it firmly with a wooden kitchen mallet to tenderize it without crushing it;
ideally, do not collect limpets during low tide when they have been uncovered too long;
though very common, limpets are rarely used in cuisine because the cooking is tricky. Overcooked for a few seconds and the flesh starts to toughen;
in Madeira, limpets are a traditional hors-d'oeuvre; the "lapas" are placed in sizzling garlic butter and become perfectly cooked in the time it takes to get from the kitchen to the table
*
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Ah, cheers Acidhell that's useful information. I hadn't read about them before taken out of the shell before cooking though, the articles I've read suggest to boil them whole.

If anyone else has any tips I'd be grateful!
 
Update as promised!

First of all I'll dump the pictures:

Here you can see how easy they were to shell, you just slip the knife in between the shell and the foot muscle and then go round the inside of the shell with the blade, they were raw/alive at this stage:


When you lift them out they look like this, sorry about the poor pictures. The black sack is the guts etc. Quite amazing creatures, you can clearly see the snail resemblance, they have two little eye stalks just like a snail:


Here they are cleaned up with the sack removed and ready to go into the pan:


I ended up making a separate tomato pasta sauce with some mackerel, olives, white wine, lemon, herbs etc and then frying the limpets off in another pan with garlic, butter, chilli and salt, I then added them to the sauce and tossed in a load of pasta:


They tasted pretty good actually, just like eating a mussel! They shrunk down a lot in the pan and a lot of water came out which I drained off. I also overcooked them a bit, I think they were in the pan for 2mins 30, and I reckon they need 45 secs maximum, so admittedly they were a bit chewy.

Overall worth doing for a bit of free protein I reckon, I will probably be going out to the rocks at low tide most Sundays now :)
 
Good job!

I think ray mears cooked limpets at one point, I seem to remember him placing them on a hot rock out the fire. When they were cooked the shell just lifted off. They were pretty tough.

I might be making this up.

p.s. nice blender and le creuset:D
 
Stupot_ said:
Good job!

I think ray mears cooked limpets at one point, I seem to remember him placing them on a hot rock out the fire. When they were cooked the shell just lifted off. They were pretty tough.

I might be making this up.

p.s. nice blender and le creuset:D
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I seen that as well, he had mussels and razor clams from a fresh-water river, was very interesting.
I like the look of this OP, looks very interesting, I live bang smack on the coast and linpets, winkles and mussels are all over the place!

I may do just this sometime, although I hope they're as okay as yours to eat, I've never really thought about it until now.
Thanks for sharing!
 
Emphacy said:
I seen that as well, he had mussels and razor clams from a fresh-water river, was very interesting.
I like the look of this OP, looks very interesting, I live bang smack on the coast and linpets, winkles and mussels are all over the place!

I may do just this sometime, although I hope they're as okay as yours to eat, I've never really thought about it until now.
Thanks for sharing!
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See if you can find razor clams!

with free boob shot:
 
Stupot_ said:
Good job!

I think ray mears cooked limpets at one point, I seem to remember him placing them on a hot rock out the fire. When they were cooked the shell just lifted off. They were pretty tough.

I might be making this up.

p.s. nice blender and le creuset:D
Click to expand...

To be totally honest I saw the same show years ago, I got the idea from that and then did a bit of googling.

I reckon they will have a pretty decent texture once I get used to cooking them. I've got some other recipe ideas as well, I'll post pictures of later attempts if I remember.

Who knew Le Creuset stuff was so versatile eh? You can make a casserole or use it as a Limpet tank :D
 
That's really good! Would you see they are better than mussels? They look slimier than mussles but not as slimey as oysters. A fair assessment?

When I was in Mull a few weekends ago, there were quite a few men out in the rock pools in oilskins probably doing the same sort of thing as you but on a bigger scale. It's great what you can get for free with minimal work. Unfortunately, all I can do is brick a seagull.
 
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