Luke Nguyen describes this popular Vietnamese street food as a "textural delight" and half the fun is extracting the hot cooked snails from their shells. While Luke uses rice paddy snails in this recipe, you can also use sea snails. He also uses young lemon leaves as they're more subtle and delicate in flavour than kaffir lime leaves. Serves 2 as an entree or 4 as an appetiser.
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp diced lemongrass
2 red Asian shallots, minced
1 tbsp minced garlic
250ml light coconut milk
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 long red chilli, sliced
½ bunch Vietnamese mint
Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.
