Muki tsubugai

On friday, the restaurant received a kilo of muki tsubugai, or japanese whelk. So i was given an opportunity to learn how to clean this little buggers. 

 Firstly, remove the operculum of the whelk from it's foot.

Operculum of the whelk

Secondly, slit open the belly and remove the intestine of the whelk

Then, remove the proboscis(tube-like thing) and intestine of the whelk. If you pay attention to the picture, you will notice white sacs. According to chef, these sacs when eaten will cause drowsiness. 

Lastly, wash and scrub them in lots of salt to remove the slime and the black layer, repeat this step a few times till they are no longer slimy. Even after the whole process of cleaning them up, these buggers were still moving.

To cook them, we confit them in oil. 

To get to know whelks better you can check out this site:
http://webs.lander.edu/rsfox/invertebrates/busycon.html