When I heard that the theme of the latest Connoisseurs Cookoffs would be game, I was both excited and stumped. I have very little experience with game meats save for a twenty-something-year-old memory of eating venison for breakfast. I figured that if I was going to do this, I wanted to do it right, or at least do something memorable.
I was torn between bear and wild boar, a problem that was only exacerbated by the fact that Savenor’s market had both meats available, so I went for a dish that included both.
In all fairness, this is actually two separate recipes and will be presented as such.
I found the recipe for Gaelic Bear Roast on some hunting website and modified it to my tastes. An important note when cooking bear; be sure you cook it thoroughly so that there is no pink in the roast, this is essential because bears are very prone to trichinosis, and thorough cooking is the only way to kill the parasites that cause this very unpleasant ailment. Now that I’ve ruined your appitite, here is what you’ll need:
Bear (I used about 2½ lbs, shoulder roast)
Marinade
2 cups red wine (I recommend something smoky and bloody)
½ cup Olive Oil
1 Onion, chopped
6 cloves of garlic, smashed with your handy old can of menudo
1 carrot, chopped
12 Black Peppercorns
1 tbsp tarragon
Crust
1 stick butter
1½ cups flour
3 tbsp dried mustard
Gravy
½ stick butter
1 pint heavy cream
A Dozen or so Green Onions, chopped
A Dozen or so mushrooms, thinly sliced
¼ cup flour mixed with 1 cup water
2 tsp celery salt
4 tsp dark mushroom soy sauce
¾ cup Scotch whisky (I used Johnnie Walker Red Label)
1 tsp crushed red pepper flake
Salt & pepper to taste
If you purchased your bear frozen, and I’m sure you did, allow it to thaw for 24 hours in the fridge. Remove any butcher’s twine from the roast and place it in a sealable Tupperware container. Pour the marinade over the bear, seal it, and refrigerate overnight. You should flip the container every few hours, or whenever you remember to.
In the morning you will be greeted by a rather repulsive looking milky pinkish brine that the bear meat is now calling home, drain all that junk off, its done its work.
At this point you should mix up the crust with a fork, you don’t want it to be uniform or very well mixed, more like a coffee cake topping.
Then pack this crust mix all around the roast, on all sides, and place the bear on a roasting pan. Put the whole shebang in a 425 degree oven for 30 mins and then reduce the heat to 325 for another 2 to 2 ½ hours. Check at that point to see if more cooking is needed and do so if necessary. When done, remove the roast and set it out to rest while you make the gravy.
To make the gravy, put the flour/water slurry in the pan on medium-high heat and chop your green onions and mushrooms.
Add the butter and green onions when the mix starts to simmer,
add the mushrooms, Scotch, cream, soy sauce, celery salt, and chili flake and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and let the gravy thicken, stirring often, tasting regularly for fine-tuning, season as needed.
The roasted vegetables should look familiar to regular readers of The Connoisseurs, as they were pretty much the same thing as the Bloody Roots I made over the winter, only with out the beets, and with the addition of parsnips (which are way better than my mother had me led to believe as a child), celeriac (celery root, weird looking, but very tasty, like celery in flavor if you can believe that), and, to my detriment, two rather fiery jalapenos, an addition I would forgo in the future.
Carve the bear into ½ inch thick slices and serve along side the roasted roots and cover with a healthy helping of the Scotch cream gravy.
As far as wild boar is concerned, it is as versatile as pork because, after all, it is pork. Boar is very lean and care must be taken not to over cook it because it dries out easily. Most Americans have never had truly good pork, myself included, and wild boar gives us a chance to taste what we’re missing; the complexities of flavor, the mouthwatering texture… things the American Superpig could never accomplish.
I purchased two wild boar loins, but by the time I got them thawed out one had developed a disturbing green tinge and a slightly cheesy smelling, a sure sign that it was on its way out, so I promptly disposed of it. Luckily the other loin was packaged separately and was untainted. I would recommend two loins for this recipe at least though. It’s called Sweet and Savory Spice-Crusted Wild Boar, and it goes a little something like this:
Wild Boar (2- 1 lb loins)
Spice Crust
2 cinnamon sticks, broken into tiny slivers, not ground
1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
6 cloves, crushed
8 peppercorns, crushed
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp fennel seeds (also great as a snack)
You will also need
2 cloves garlic, slivered
4 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp walnut oil
4 cups spinach
½ stick butter
2 tsp honey
Salt to taste
Cover the boar loins in the spice crust and place them in separate zip-top bags with 2 tbsp walnut oil to coat,
seal tightly, and refrigerate overnight.
When you are ready to cook, heat up a frying pan on high with the olive oil and garlic, and then sear the wild boar loins 4 or 5 minutes to a side and set aside to rest.
While the boar is resting, in a pan wilt the spinach with the butter and honey and cook until bright green and tender, 3 or 4 minutes should do the trick.
Cut the boar into ½ inch thick slices and serve on a bed of the spinach, with the melted butter at the bottom of the pan used as a sauce.