Wild Boar Stew

This wild boar stew is one of my preferred stews! The meat is slowly braised into the wine for hours and the result will be a very soft and tasty entree. The preparation is quite long, but easy, and can be cooked one or two days before, it will be even more tasty! To cook perfectly this wild boar stew I discourage cheap wine, otherwise the taste will be excessively acidic!

3 lb wild boar mini roast (1.4 Kg)
1/8 lb Italian pancetta, finely sliced
12 oz white mushrooms (340 g)
½ oz dried porcini mushrooms (14 g)
1 white onion
1 carrot
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 tsp. cornstarch
1 bottle good quality red wine
4 leaves fresh sage
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 Tbsp. double concentrated tomato paste
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. yellow mustard seeds
1 stick cinnamon
3 juniper berries
2 cloves
1 tsp. black pepper, freshly ground
sea salt

Marinate:
As other game meats, wild boar needs to be hanged before cooking. Often marinading is suggested, to mitigate the wild taste of the meat. It depends how the boar is treated before putting up for sale. Just ask to your butcher if marinate or not. If marinading is necessary, submerge 24 hours the meat into red wine and the same quantity of spices and vegetable will be used to prepare the recipe. Discard and replace wine and other ingredients used for marinading.

Braised Wild Boar Stew:
To prepare this tasty wild boar stew, start mincing the Italian pancetta slices, and place into a thick-bottomed heavy pot. Place the pot over low heat, combined with 1 tbsp of olive oil, mustard seeds, cloves, cinnamon stick, paprika, sage leaves and juniper berries. Let the fat of pancetta slowly melt. Now, cut coarsely onion and carrots, then peel and crush 1 clove of garlic.

Seared Meat:
When the pancetta is well melted, add the vegetables and rosemary. Meanwhile the vegetables are cooking, cut the meat into dices large about 1 inch. Saute until the onion is soft and translucent, then add tomato paste and stir-fry a couple of minutes. Now, pour the vegetables into a bowl. In the same pot, add a couple of tbsp of olive oil and sear the meat a few pieces at time over high heat, until golden brown on all the sides.

Slow Cooking:
When the meat is well seared, add the stir fried vegetables, raise the flame and submerge all the ingredients with the red wine. Cook a couple of minutes over high heat, then cover the pot with a lid, and set the flame at minimum. The stew have to very gently bubbling under the lid. Cook 3 hours.

Seared Mushrooms:
Meanwhile the wild boar is cooking, submerge the dried porcini into a cup of warm water. Now, clean the white mushrooms and cut them into quarters. Peel a crush 1 clove of garlic, then sauté it combined with 2 tbsp of melted butter in a pan over medium heat until golden. Now, add the white mushrooms and stir fry over high heat. When the porcini are soften squeeze mince them, saving the water. Pour the porcini into the pan and cook until the liquid of the mushrooms will be evaporated.

Red Wine Sauce:
When the wild boar is very soft and well cooked, divide the meat from the other ingredients. Discard rosemary sprig and cinnamon stick, add the water used to soft the porcini and 1 tsp of cornstarch. Mix with a blender until obtain a consistent sauce. Sift the sauce and pour into the pot combined with the meat and mushrooms. Cook without the lid over low heat until the sauce will be medium thicken. Complete adding salt to taste and black pepper.

Makes 8 servings.