How to make whelks with bacon

Ingredients. Bacon and whelks – this is obvious, but then you need to have some herbs and spices, but let’s write everything step by step:

• Whelk meat - 100gm
• Smoked streaky bacon, fattiest - 75gm
• Sage – few leafs
• Half lemon for juice
• Black pepper to taste
• Olive oil – 2 tbsp
• Parsley – handful bunch of leafs
• Balsamic glaze for decoration
• Baby leafs of watercress for serving, not too much

Many chefs do not clean whelks, but I prefer to clean them by removing intestines and some fatty limbs from inside. The taste starts to be much better after this procedure.

Cut whelk alongside into halves and you will see in the middle big thick dark pipe with some fatty limbs around, just remove it. After few attempts you will start to do it very quickly.

Cut bacon into a small stripes, also cut sage and parsley

Preheat pan without any oil and start to fry bacon. When bacon start to have nice crust, sprinkle it with black pepper and add sage. Shake and toss it every so often.

Add whelks, then add some olive oil and when it is almost ready, add lemon juice and parsley. Job done!

Decorate place with balsamic glazing. Add some leafs, place fried whelks with bacon in the centre, decorate with micro-leafs. Enjoy!

This is very simple and straightforward recipe, but the taste is so amazing – that this was very popular dish in the restaurant. Actually, it was a starter.





Not you’ve seen how I’ve make this whelks with bacon when I was in the restaurant. It was lovely light starter, full with protein ad sea-side aroma.