Petit Rôti de Wild Boar

Petit Rôti de Wild Boar

As I was picking  meat for the week at the Park Slope Food Coop, the “Wild Boar Mini Roast,  Distributed by d‘Artagnan” looked like the perfect piece for Pierre and I to make into one of our  celebration dinner sfor our 21st anniversary month —neither of us remembers the exact date, so that’s a good excuse to have a few celebration throughout the month of January.

It would have been better if I had let the cute little roast marinate for a day or even a few hours, but when I came home after shopping I sat at my desk and didn’t get up until 7:30 pm. Pierre said: “It takes about three days to make one of the boar recipe from Luxembourg.” Well, I took on the challenge and with great anxiety I turned it into one of my fast dinners. I first went to the d’Artagnan website to check out the product information:

The D’Artagnan Wild Boar Mini-Roast is made from the knuckle and is pre-tied to hold its shape and allow for even cooking temperature. Simply brown in a hot sauté pan with sliced garlic and rosemary to seal. Then place in the oven about 375F to finish the cooking or until internal temperature reaches 155-160F. Remove from oven and let rest before slicing. Serve either hot or cold. Great on sandwiches!

D’Artagnan Wild Boar come from a large free-range ranch outside of Quebec. The animals graze freely on nuts, acorns, and grasses while being supported at times of need by whole grains. You’ll find the meat leaner than large-farm pork and richer in taste, but smooth and succulent in texture.

Alright, sounds good, though I don’t like the “pre-tied” device, which is an elastic trussing net. I discarded it  and replaced it with some d’Artagnan bacon and decided to just braise it in the oven. Voilà the procedure:

Preheat oven to 375F.
Take one sliced onion, 1 cup of sliced celery root, 1 sliced carrot, 6 slices of chopped  bacon, one cup of unsweetened cherries and about a dozen heads of shitake mushrooms, and place it all in a roasting dish. Generously coat if with olive oil, add salt pepper. Mix  well.

Boar Roast

Boar Roast

Coat the meat with oil, salt pepper. Wrap with  uncured apple wood smoked bacon. Place roast on top of the veggies and that’s how it goes into the oven.  As we read above, the legit internal cooking temperature is 155-160F, but that is too much for me. Our roast was 1.31lb, I cooked it for 40mn, the temperature reached 144F and this was a little over cooked for us, but that is a matter of taste and choice. In the same oven cook fingerling potatoes in another roasting pan,  lightly coated with oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.

Once the meat is cooked to your liking, let it rest and transfer the vegetables & cooking juices into a sauté pan with one tablespoon of melted butter and a dash of oil. Sauté the veggies and flambé with  Armagnac.

Boar Roast

Finish up the fingerlings potatoes with fresh butter and parsley.
Slice the meat, keep it warm, pour the juice into the veggie pan, add  another dollop of butter in the pan to give it a shine!
Set up you plate and serve quickly.
Really simple, delicious and if you are a Park Slope Food Coop member, not  expensive either ($10.10 for the roast, a little more if you order at d’Artagnan but you don’t have to work for the discounted price and it can be delivered to your house!). Though very tasty with a rich and lightly gamy taste, I have to confess that the meat was a little tough, the marinade would have certainly ‘cured’ the problem, but other than that it was amazing. The hints of tartness (unsweetened dry cherries) combined with the distinguished taste of celery root, the shitake mushrooms’ texture, the sweetness of the carrots & onions, the mildly wild taste of the boar and the hint of Armagnac, plus the bottle of the inexpensive, but good Côte du Rhône Les Garrigues to wash it down, made it a very pleasing experience indeed.

It took me only 15/20 minutes to prepare it, 40 minute to roast it, and 10 minutes to finish it up. We had a few slices left over that will make a great sandwich for lunch. Enjoy le sanglier!



Oxtail Summer Stew: must eat it with your fingers!

Oxtail Summer Stew: must eat it with your fingers!

Image from: Dictionnaire Universel de Cuisine et d’Hygiène Alimentaire
—Joseph Favre  1894—


In the the late 19th century French nomenclature for beef cut classification
(see picture above), beef tail ranked as PREMIÈRE CATÉGORIE (first category) — for the top of the tail— &  CINQUIÈME CATÉGORIE (fifth category) for the rest of it, which makes sense as the top of the tail is meatier than the  end.  Ox tail dishes can still be found on the menu of ethnic restaurants: Cuban, Chinese, Korean, but not so often in main stream place. To buy them your best choice will be  a supermarket with  any of the ethnic presences cited above, though personally I avoid any “industrial” meat and stick with grass fed. Yes, it is more expensive, but I rather eat less & avoid the hormones, antibiotics, and lousy treatment of the animal.

oxtail"

So I was thrilled to find some beautiful grass feed oxtail cuts at the Park Slope Food Coop,  not only because I love it, but also because it is cheaper than any other cut: $4.63lb. The farm provenance: McDonald Farm in the Finger lakes Region of Upstate NY.  I knew exactly how I was going to  cook them because I surveyed the fridge before going shopping & noticed that a few veggies required immediate use.  So below is my recipe with what was left over in the fridge and would make the dish great.

oxtail"

The only imperatives are:
1- Very long slow cooking
( 6/7 hours minimum)
2- Once fully cooked let the dish rest and eat it the next day, reheated.
3- Eat the tail bones with your fingers, other wise you will be missing all the best parts!

Recipe:
for 2 with a little left over:
2
lbs 1/2 of oxtail
1 onions
3 red pepper
1 green pepper

oxtail"1 zucchini
2 celery rib
3 cloves of garlic
1 cup of small porcini mushrooms
1 ripe seeded tomato
—all of the above chopped fine—
1/2 cup of Shitake tails
1 cup of white wine
1 cup of red wine
Salt & lots of freshly ground pepper

Warm 2 tablespoon of duck fat, back fat or olive oil in a skillet; when it is hot, brown the  pieces of tails thoroughly.
Set aside, keep the fat in the pan and sauté the onions, once melted add the red & green pepper, zucchini and celery. Sauté and let sweat for a few minutes. Then add the mushrooms, let them sweat a little ,then add the tomato and the garlic. Mix well, add the tail bones, mix well again, add wine, salt & pepper ,mix. Once the liquid boils, turn it down to a low flame and let simmer for 5/6 hours or more.
You know the meat is perfect when it comes undone easily and falls off the bone. If you can let is rest over night and eat it the next day it will taste even better. Look at Pierre above licking his fingers before he said: “This is absolutely delicious, and you can quote me!”