Grilled Fillet of Wild Boar with a Porcini Sauce and Pommes Lyonnaises
You should get a young wild boar saddle, or one that has been filleted into two long
fillets or cut into portions of 150g. per person.
So, for four people, you need...
600g. cut into 4 steaks.
50g. of fresh porcini per person or 10g of dried porcini soaked in double their volume
of hot water.
Calvados, olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme and or oregano for the marinade
Make a marinade by sprinkling some Calvados, olive oil, Noilly Prat or Chambèry,
(optional but nice) thyme and oregano, salt and pepper on a large enough dish to
place the fillets in one layer. Chill for a couple of hours, turn over the meat,
and chill again for a couple of hours ( can be done à la minute but it is better
if the meat marinates for a while). Bring the meat to room temperature, and heat
a griddle well before grilling the meat, which must sizzle and make marks. Criss-cross
on both sides until the pink juices appear. Take away and keep hot or warm on a dish
for at least half an hour before serving.
Just before serving, you may heat it in a hot oven for a few seconds.
The sauce...
If you obtained the saddle and had the bone, then you can make a stock and reduce
it. If you didn't get the whole saddle, then just use the porcini water. Strain the
porcini if they were dried, keeping the liquid, dry them well and sauté them with
a couple of shallots, salt and pepper. Put in half the cooked porcini in the liquidiser
and equal quantities of concentrated hot stock and porcini water, a knob of butter
(size of a large hazelnut), a dash of Calvados.
...Make as creamy a sauce as you want. Peel and cut an apple into tiny mirepoix
or cubes, and sauté in butter brought to a light hazelnut colour on a small flame.
Put salt and pepper, flambé with a little Calvados. Leave aside. Mix the sauce with
the rest of the sautéed porcini. If you are using fresh mushrooms (you can in fact
use any type of mushroom. I just like porcini, and the dried type which I find more
intense, but nothing can beat the fresh one picked on the day!), then sauté them(washed
and towel dried), with a couple of shallots and proceed as before, using more stock.
Pommes Lyonnaises...
Cube 2 medium-size potatoes (or more if you love potatoes and they are really nice!);
the smaller the cubes the better. Roughly chop two shallots. Put the cubed potatoes
and shallots in cold water and cook until a hard al dente (two to three minutes after
boiling, according to size of potatoes). Strain and dry. Heat some duck fat ( ideally,
or olive oil if you don't have any), sauté well until all the potatoes are coated,
and put in the oven until golden. They can be cooked in advance and reheated (one
or two hours!), or done à la minute.
The vegetables to serve...
My favourite with this, is a purée of carrots and parsnips cooked in equal quantity,
puréed hot with again preferably, a little duck fat; if not, olive oil, with some
added cumin and a little milk if the mixture is too dense; and you do not want to
add too much fat. I usually pipe the purée on individual gilled medium-size ordinary
mushrooms.
Plus, a confit of red spiced cabbage with raisins and apple, a pinch of cinnamon
and allspice. Shred a small (size of cantaloupe melon) red cabbage as thinly as possible;
put in a saucepan big enough to turn it over with spices, a handful of raisins and
two Cox's apples cut very thinly. Sauté in enough (yes, duck fat!) or olive oil,
to coat the cabbage. Bring to the boil 10cl. white vinegar, mixed with 20cl. water
and pour on to the cabbage. Mix very very well, put on smallest light possible. Cover
well and cook until almost melting Add salt and pepper at the end.
To serve...
Plate the meats, mix a little sauce with cooked apple, and put the rest of the sauce
with the porcini around the plate, together with a few potatoes and the mushroom,
stuffed with the carrot/parsnip purée. Serve the red cabbage separately.
