Lapas...Limpets Portugese Style

[Night Phoenix]

Hello folks,
Right, recently myself and bf were lucky enough to find ourselves on a Portugese Island and on the final night we had the most delicious, fantabulous limpets (lapas) I have ever had in a nearby restaurant! They were so good they made us giddy. It would seem they are cooked in an iron griddle pan over a flame with garlic butter and olive oil. Yesterday we tried to replicate this (without the nice iron griddle) with some local limpets that sacrificed there lives in the aid of this gastronomy. I did not cut them from the shell though as it seemed a crueler method. We accidentally, utterly cremated them though dutifully ate each one!
I was wondering if anyone out there has cooked limpets on their backs lapas style and if so is willing to share the secret of their success. I would be over the moon to hear it.
Kat

 

[Janne]

I have cooked limpets two different ways:
Boiled them in sea water - bit chewy ( over cooked?) but delicious
Boiled them in their shell ( meat facing up) in hot ash - net as chewy ( shorter cooking) and even more flavour!

I did not have access to butter, just black pepper of questionable quality ( tiny packets I scrounged in fast food restaurants)

I do not understand why we can not buy limpets in the stores.

 

[Leshy]

Grilled limpets are my favourite way to cook them.

"Lapas à Portuguesa"



Ingredients:
10 medium sized limpets per person

1 full head of garlic (3 or 4 garlic cloves)
Very finely chopped.

1 Very finely chopped handful of parsley

3 or 4 lemons

Dash of White wine vinegar


½ packet of salted butter





Preparing;

Carefully clean the limpets.
If they were picked from rocks , they will have very little sand anyway.
But if not you may have to leave them in a tub with salt water for a few hours so they lose the sand.

Separately , Very finely, chop the garlic and chop the parsley very very finely.


This is a simple recipe but it's also easy to get all muddled up and let them overcook. This will result in them becoming very rubbery and almost inedible.





Sauce:

Squeeze the lemon juice out of the lemons .
Put aside.
Melt half the pack of butter on a small pan , when it's fully melted add the lemon juice and two or three very finely chopped garlic cloves and a dash or two of white wine vinegar .





Cooking:

Only then you should put the limpets under the grill ...
Try and use a decent thick pan , or a Dutch oven type of thing if you're doing it on coals ...

Wait until the limpets are detaching from the shells ,and only then you add the sauce to each of the limpets with a teaspoon or a table spoon.
By the time you get to the last one , it means the others are all ready and grilled .
You can then sprinkle the finely chopped parsley over the limpets and voilà!

Bon appetit

👍


PS-

the olive oil is optional and really just to raise the boiling temperature of the butter , thus preventing it from burning.

burning butter is not nice and ive been told very unhealthy too...
So by adding a little splash of olive oil you made the butter more resistant to heat...If it makes sense?

Vinegar is also optional but a nice addition in my opinion, just go steady with it...👍

Hope it helps...



Lovely tasty foragers delight and one of my favourites, but not as nice as barnacles....

Portuguese barnacles are called " Perceves " and those are just delicious too...


It's so much easier to forage on the coast ...👍👍

 

[Toddy]

…….

I do not understand why we can not buy limpets in the stores.

'cos nobody can understand why anybody would want to eat them !

Even the British sea fishing site says….
"The common limpet (Patella vulgata) – also known as the European limpet – is an edible (although not widely eaten) species of ‘true’ limpet which is abundant across the whole of the British Isles, and indeed most of Europe."

http://britishseafishing.co.uk/limpets/

 

[Toddy]

I didn't know they always returned to their 'home plate', or that they could live for twenty years either.

See this internet ? it's an interesting place

M

 

[Janne]

Toddy, according to my granddad, you could not eat Eel because they fed on dead sailors, and lobster because they live on even worse things!

( just after WW2 the eel and lobster catches were very large, no doubt because nobody caught them during the war)

And, excuse me for saying this, the British average person is incredibly unadventurous eater!

 

[Robson Valley]

Lobsters & crabs = garbage cans of the sea. Extremely edible, says I.

The limpets: a) edible and b) abundant. What's not to like?

Here's how I do mussels:
Sweat 2 tbsp crushed garlic and 2 tbsp butter in a big pot
Add 1/2C fine dice onion & 1C red & green pepper strips and sweat some more.
Add 1C white wine and heat.
Add mussels, 30-35/lb, roll them around, lid on for 10 minutes.
If they're really meaty, 30 is a big feed and I'll eat far more than most people.
Serve with fresh bread & butter, dunk buttered bread in pot juices.

Sure would love to try this with limpets. Somebody do it and let me know.
Patella vulgata, hummmmm?

 

[Janne]

That is basically how I do mussels too, the only fifference is that I omit bell peppets, and add one finely chopped 1/2 hot pepper.

 

[Robson Valley]

The recipe came out of the back door of a big shot restaurant in a big city.
I'd use jalapeno but nobody wants it. So it has to stay kind of "dumbed down."

I've never eaten limpets. Sure would like to try.

We've got a horrific west coast shellfish poisoning harvest ban now.
So the prices skyrocket with air freight. I can make do with frozen American alligator.

 

[Toddy]

It occurs to me that all those recipes are basically drowning the taste (is there any ?) of the shellfish in butter, garlic, etc.,
…..most things are edible in butter and garlic

Unadventurous ? well, maybe, but then we're spoiled, our islands grew magnificent crops and still do, and there was no shortage of variety of meats. Just that it's a temperate climate and we don't grow a lot of tropical crops here. So we import, and that doesn't come cheaply.
Truthfully, I don't think we are unadventurous in our diets, though the original connections of country side to seasonality to plate have been greatly diminished since the IR. The balance tipped from rural to urban here very early on.

Basically if you find a cuisine that's using up everything from duck feet to chewy seafood, they've lived through a lot of famines, because that's all there was.

We have enormous shell middens; lot of whelks in them.

M

 

[Tonyuk]

I agree on plenty of garlic and a knob of butter, and some mixed herbs if available. I don't think limpets have much of a flavour on their own. Last time i cooked them i stuck them to a rock and put the rock in the coals, with the limpets at the side. After a few minutes they should be done. Don't use a rock that's been sitting in the water.

Razor clams are better i think, more meat on them too, they go very well with fennel.

Tonyuk

 

[Night Phoenix]

Cheers folks, I am determined to crack this one. I spent a lot of time cooking limpets in various ways in the past (it was one of those childhood foraging memories) but have never tasted anything like this so I wanna nail it.
Thanks Leshy, this is exactly the sort of thing I was after.
I think this has highlighted some changes I should make. First of all I added the sauce way to early and not enough of it and secondly I think I really do need that big thick cast Iron pan if I am cooking them over the flames. I am determined to try and nail this. First of all I am one of the rare people who bloody loves limpets and secondly I think this would convince anyone of limpetty goodness.
I am suspicious that perhaps the limpets themselves had been marinaded or preserved somehow before cooking as they were so unbelievably tender. So yum!
Once I have it I will post a recipe because hopefuly you are going to wanna try this

 

[Leshy]

Cheers folks, I am determined to crack this one. I spent a lot of time cooking limpets in various ways in the past (it was one of those childhood foraging memories) but have never tasted anything like this so I wanna nail it.
Thanks Leshy, this is exactly the sort of thing I was after.
I think this has highlighted some changes I should make. First of all I added the sauce way to early and not enough of it and secondly I think I really do need that big thick cast Iron pan if I am cooking them over the flames. I am determined to try and nail this. First of all I am one of the rare people who bloody loves limpets and secondly I think this would convince anyone of limpetty goodness.
I am suspicious that perhaps the limpets themselves had been marinaded or preserved somehow before cooking as they were so unbelievably tender. So yum!
Once I have it I will post a recipe because hopefuly you are going to wanna try this

No problem , Kat👍

The tenderness comes from not overcooking the limpets.
Look forward to hearing back from your results?👍👍