Civet de Sanglier

The round dish on the left is a civet de sanglier prepared by these charcutiers/traiteurs at the truffle market in Marigny Marmande.

The word civet tells you that this dish is a game stew, traditionally made with the blood of the animal. Sanglier is wild boar, so in English the dish would be called Jugged Boar. That's always assuming it's made in the old way, which it almost never is these days. Usually civets are now made using red wine and some liver to provide an approximation of the colour and texture of the original recipe. Often the liver is omitted and it's just red wine, making it Boar Bourguignon, as Ken pointed out when I mentioned this recipe last year.

Ingredients for Boar Bourguignon.

Ingredients:
1kg wild boar meat, cut into 2cm cubes
½ - 1 cup of blood or 100g pork or chicken liver (optional)
Olive oil
200g salt and smoke cured pork belly, cut into 2cm cubes
A large onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 carrots, cut into chunks
A bouquet garni made of parsley, celery leaves, bay leaves, sprigs of thyme and a strip of orange peel
10 juniper berries, roughly crushed
A bottle of red wine
A can of tomato paste (optional)
1 tsp Lapsang souchong tea, ground to a fine powder (optional)
200g mushrooms (ideally wild forest mushrooms such as ceps)

Slow cooking on our ever reliable wood stove.

Method:

1. If your wild boar is genuinely wild and not farmed, put it in the freezer for 3 weeks to kill any parasites.
2. Defrost overnight in the fridge, ideally in a marinade made of the blood, wine, some oil, the bouquet garni and juniper. 
3. Drain the meat and brown in some oil. Transfer to a casserole dish.
4. Brown the vegetables and cured pork belly and add to the casserole.
5. Deglaze the pan with the marinade and tip the hot liquid into the casserole, along with the bouquet garni, the juniper berries and finely chopped liver.
6. Add the can of tomato paste and the smoky tea powder and stir to mix all the ingredients.
7. Cook at a slow simmer for 2 hours, either on top of the stove or in the oven at 150°C.
8. Sauté the mushrooms and either add to the casserole for the last half hour of cooking, or serve them as an accompaniment.
9. Adjust the seasoning to taste by adding salt and pepper.
10. Serve the civet with mixed root vegetable mash (celeriac and swede is particularly good).

Bon appetit!

PS. This recipe will work with venison (biche or chevreuil in French) and I reckon you could do roo meat like this and it would be very good indeed.

Yum

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A la cuisine hier: Baked beans, fried eggs, bacon and buttered fresh bread. One of Simon's favourite meals.

Pork fillet in mustard cream sauce, mixed root veggie mash, peas.

Bread and butter pudding, made as a sort of synthesis of this recipe and Gaynor's. Simon didn't really like it. Too messed about with for him I think. I thought it was extremely good.