Winkles, also known as periwinkles are one of the least gathered of all beach dwelling creatures, even less so than the Limpet. A winkle is a Marine Gastropod Mollusc, basically a sea snail that lives within the small pools that gather around rocks on the beach. They are very easy to find and gather and don’t taste anywhere near as bad as they look.
Where to find Winkles
The common Winkle can be found across the north-eastern and north-western regions of the Atlantic ocean, which includes most of the coast of Europe as well as north America and Canada.
They normally like to spend their whole lives in the inter-tidal zone of the beach, which is the area between the points of low and high tide, with rock pools being the best places to look as they prefer the hard rock surface instead of sand. Its not worth looking for any on the sand at low tide, as they like to have some water to get them by until the next tide comes in. Even if a beach is covered in stones they will still only be found in the rock pools, as when the tide is in the stones move around with the waves and smash their shells to bits.
Gathering Winkles
This bit couldn’t be easier as they are very slow creatures and normally make no effort at all to try and hide from predators. If some are present in a rock pool they will be easy to spot and can be easily plucked off the rocks. Its best to put them in a container with some sea water in until you get back home, as they don’t seal themselves off completely from the air like mussels or cockles do, and need water to survive for anything more than a few hours.
Winkle cleaning
After getting your winkles home its time to clean them. Rinse off any obvious mud or dirt on the outside of the shells and put the winkles in salt water and wash them around for a few minutes. They are normally cooked in the shells and can be tricky to remove without cooking first.
Cooking
Get some water on a good rolling boil and drop your winkles in. They only take about 3 or 4 minutes but if your cooking a large amount at the same time, you only need to add no more than a couple of minutes on top, and be careful not to cook them for to long as they will become tough.
( A winkle out of its shell, not the nicest looking creature but surprisingly tasty)
Preparation
After they are cooked its time to either store them or get them ready for a dish. The only part of them that you cant eat apart from the shell is the hard stopper like foot they use to seal themselves in their shells, but the rest of the body is edible.
If you want to eat them as they are, remove the foot and put a little garlic butter inside the shell and put them in the oven for a minute. You can also just pluck them right out the shell and eat them plain.
If you want to do something a little more interesting you can remove them from their shells and cook them into a recipe substituting them for shrimp or some other kind of shellfish. They work particularly well in place of cockles using the recipe that can be found at the bottom of the Cockles page.
