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GourmetFly.com Cooking French "Sanglier" (wild boar)... Ingredient ready for a cooking session... Basic, wild boar recipes The wild boar once butchered will offer different parts of "venison" (we call "venaison" here any meat of big game requiring different types of preparation. Typically the wild boar will offer: 1/ Two shoulders that will be stewed in red wine. 2/ Two "hams" or back legs that will be roasted. 3/ Two tender fillets, or tenderloins located under the spine, that will be sautéed in a pan. And 4/ Two backstrap fillets that can be roasted, sauteed or used to make "pâté".  A lot more of small undefined pieces will be found around the throat or covering the ribs, they're usually employed in terrines or pâtés, but perfect also to make "ragù di cinghiale" like in Tuscany. Any other of the "noble" part of course can be used for pâtés or terrines. Making wild boar pâté... Open the following link to my page explaining how to make deer pâté. The principle is the same for wild boar. As well if you do not wish to make preserved jars you can use the same recipe, to make a fresh terrine to cook in oven and serve a couple of days later. Open this link to the pâté page. Stewing boar shoulders... Civet de Sanglier Red wine stew, to be used for a tough shoulder, leg or backstrap fillet of boar or any other big game.  In Provence, this would be called a "Daube de sanglier". Cut into pieces or cubes between 1 and 2 inches. Gather in the kitchen, wheat flour, 1 onion, a small carrot, one or two heads of garlic, a thick and fat slice of smoked bacon (du lard fumé), a can of mushrooms (or fresh ones), a bottle of strong red wine, salt pepper, herbes de Provence, bay leaf, the smallest can of concentrated tomatoes, fresh parsley. Take a deep thick cast iron "cocotte", Dutch oven, or casserole with a cover. Put butter,oil, and the "lardons" of fat bacon. (You'll have cut your slice before of course). The melting grease of the bacon flavours the fat. Once warm, put the onion cut into pieces. The carrot cut into thin slices.The garlic, and after a while the cubes of meat. Your fire must be quite strong and you must move these things all the time. The meat becomes grey and looses moisture. If you find it all too dry add fat. Do that for around five minutes then reduce fire and put your fingers in the flour pack, take what you can and sprinkle on the meat. The top becomes white. Turn it all, the white disappears, everything dries, dont let it burn but  it must become dark brown. Do it again a 2nd time: Fingers in the flour etc... Then add your concentrated tomatoes, 1 or 2 tablespoons no more. Mix it all again. Add your mushrooms (well dried). Mix again and leave it a short while. (A wee dram of Armagnac is allowed at this stage). Add the wine, all the meat must be under the wine level. No more, no less. Put the salt, the pepper the bay leaf and the parsley thoroughly cut. Activate fire and let it boil frankly while moving it all continuously.  Scrap well  the bottom. Once it is boiling, reduce fire to minimum, place the cover on top and let it simmer smoothly for at least two hours. That is the word "mijoter". From time to time, you can lift cover, look and mix. After these two hours, you stop the fire and let it rest covered another hour. Then you can taste and see if you've put enough salt at the beginning or if you must add more. Leave it like this and if possible serve only the next day, after another hour of gentle heating. This dish is served with boiled potatoes or rice or big pasta like fresh fettuccine, tagliatelle or pappardelle (in Tuscany again). If you proceed like this, the wine has evaporated a lot, the sauce is brown and thick, but still all the meat is inside the sauce. If you evaporate too much by leaving fire too strong, you can add some (half a glass) water or broth, but never any "crude" wine. Wild boars in Provence, Sept 2007. Roasting boar legs... Cuissot de Sanglier rôti Marinate one night in 1 or 2 bottles of 75 cl of classic strong red wine. The marinade must reach at least half of the leg, so when you turn it up (every 3 hours), all parts will have been eventually marinated. In the marinade, put: - A spoon of wine vinegar and 1 of olive oil. - Onions in slices - Crushed garlic - Carrot sliced. - 1 branch of  celery, bay leaf, pepper, and from the hills of Provence: thyme, rosemary and a few of these juniper black berries. On the D-day, take the piece of venison out of the marinade, and any  time well before: Strain all the onions, carrots etc...  Take a casserole, put olive oil and butter and dry and colour all the strained onions etc... Add two big spoons of wheat flour on this, mix and let get it brown. Pour all the wine and first boil strongly then keep gently boiling until well reduced. Add if you want a small glass of brandy or armagnac, and a small piece of peeled lemon skin. Keep this on fire for an hour. At the end it must look like a thick sauce but in good quantity. Strain to keep only the liquid part. Do not try to correct or re taste, just keep it warm. Keep your meat all day out of  the refrigerator. Pre warm your your oven and place your venison on a steel dish. Put pieces of butter on top, salt, pepper, herbs, and garlic "en chemise" on the steel dish. Cook like a roast lamb leg for at least 1h30, more if bigger than the usual lamb leg. Pour small glasses of water or white wine in the dish during the stay in oven. When you think that your leg is cooked, take it out and put the dish on a gas to scratch all juices and do your best with water or white wine to obtain a good concentrated tasty gravy. Put all the gravy obtained in your wine sauce and now make the correction of salt and pepper. Add also the blood obtained from the cutting mat again in the wine sauce ... NB: The sauce must be obtained in good quantity for the following reasons: 1stly it is good and guests will use a lot with what they eat. Then a leg of wild boar is rarely entirely eaten during a dinner. When the dinner is finished, you must cut all the remaining meat in thin slices, and you will put everything in what remains of sauce. The next day you just have to reheat this to finish your cuissot. You can serve along, celery puree, or sauteed chestnuts or chestnut puree, or even simply rice or boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes. Preparing the tender fillets... Tender fillets sauteed Grand Veneur Prepare in advance: A finely chopped schallot or onion. A tablespoon of French mustard. Juice of a half lemon. Salt, Pepper, Thyme. A small glass of brandy or armagnac A small glass of white or red wine. In average a boar tenderloin will serve 4, so cut 4 steaks after trimming and discarding all the silver skins etc.. Sauté the tender fillets in a pan like you would do for a steak to the rare or medium rare point.When the meat is cooked keep it warm on a plate. Put the schallot in the pan and let it "melt" without taking colour. Add the spoon of mustard, then deglaze with the wine, the lemon juice and the armagnac. Scratch well the bottom of the pan. Season of salt, pepper & thyme. Let this reduce to syrup aspect.  Add some very green fresh parsley on top before serving.(for the pleasure of the eyes). Testimony : Had the fillet last night - absolutely fantastic; I was surprised at home much searing it could take and still remain rare - formidable ! James W. From UK, after 1st boar shooting experience in Jan 2010. Instant preparation for the backstraps... These are the fillets found on the back of the animal, as opposed to the much smaller "tender fillets" found under the spine... Wok of boar fillet "al Ajilio" Ingrédients: An onion & a big garlic clove. A tablespoon of flour & one of concentrated tomatoes. Juice of a half lemon and/or small glass of Sherry vinegar (vinagre de Jerez). Salt, Pepper, Thyme, bay-leaf. A small glass of brandy or armagnac White wine. Use a wok or a skillet or one of these deep copper pans that we call "sauteuse". Cut your meat into thin slices or chunks. Heat the chopped onion and  garlic in a bit of olive oil and start cooking the meat slices.  Season of salt, thyme and pepper. Cook on hot fire for a rather long time until the moment when the meat will have released most of its moist. At this stage the meat will be bathing in a gray juice. Sprinkle the flour, stir and let it dry and turn brown. Add the concentrated tomato, then the lemon juice and/or the vinegar of Jerez, the brandy and stir well again. Add white wine to cover level (probably less than a half bottle). Season again of salt, pepper and bay leaf just after adding the wine and let this boil to reduce of 2 thirds. The result is a dish of meat slices bathing in a not too short brown sauce. Like a chinese dish featuring European countryside taste ! The whole thing is rather quickly done and allows to use freshly killed meat for instance when friends are going to spend their last dinner together just after the hunt...