Grilled Lapas — Madeira, Portugal

Grilled lapas are limpets cooked in their own shells over a hot griddle, a seafood dish found along the volcanic coastline of Madeira. The mollusks are pried from the rocks at low tide, cleaned, and kept in their curved shells so they can be seasoned and cooked without any extra vessel. The dish is reported from the island of Madeira, in the Portuguese archipelago of the same name, where it is served in seaside grill houses as a starter before fish or meat. A related version is also cooked in the nearby Azores. Preparation is simple: the limpets are set on a very hot iron griddle in their shells, then topped with a butter worked with crushed garlic and sweet paprika paste. A short two-way heat, from the metal below and the seasoned butter above, cooks the flesh through in a few minutes without letting it turn rubbery. A splash of olive oil and a wedge of lemon finish the dish at the table. What sets the Madeira version apart from other island renderings is the paprika-garlic butter itself: on Madeira it tends to be richer and more heavily spiced, while cooks elsewhere on the archipelago may lean on garlic and butter alone. The limpets are eaten straight from the shell with bread to soak up the juices, and the griddle is often brought to the table still warm.