Wild boar vindaloo

I've used wild boar for this recipe, but there's nothing stopping you from using pork. Use good pork, though. Cheap, lean, mass-produced crap from the supermarket doesn't count as good pork. If you're curious to sample wild boar, you can order it from a good butcher or poultry store. Or go kill it. Too, this recipe makes enough for two people.



Ingredients:

350 g wild boar or pork tenderloin, cut into bite-sized cubes
6 fresh curry leaves
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 large shallot, peeled
1 small lump of ginger, peeled
1 tbs cider vinegar
1 tbs sweet paprika
2 whole cloves
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
1 tsp whole black mustard seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
vegetable, sunflower or peanut oil
steamed rice, to serve

At least a few hours--but ideally a day--before, grind the black peppercorns, cloves, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and 1/2 tsp black mustard seeds with a mortar and pestle. Then pour them into the bowl of a food processor. Blitz along with the brown sugar, cider vinegar, garlic, ginger, sea salt, shallot, sweet paprika, turmeric and 1 1/2 tbs water. You're making a curry paste, now. It should be thick, sure, but still a paste. If it seems a little dry--and that's possible, I mean, depending on the size of the shallot and the garlic cloves--add a little more cider vinegar. When you have a smooth paste, combine it with the cubed wild boar in a bowl. Rub the paste into the boar. Cover the bowl with cling film and refrigerate overnight.

Heat a generous splash of oil in a small, non-stick, lidded pan over a medium flame. Add the remaining 1/2 tsp of black mustard seeds and the curry leaves. Fry until the seeds begin to pop, then add the meat and its marinade. Fry for maybe five minutes--just enough to seal the meat--and then add 350 mL water. Stir and bring to boil, then cover the pan, reduce the heat to low and simmer for forty minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove lid and simmer for a further twenty minutes.

Wild boar sandwiches

I recently managed to get my hands on some wild boar tenderloin. I looked around online and through my cookbook collection, trying to find a suitable recipe. I wanted something simple, something that'd let me enjoy the meat for what it was. I didn't want to overwhelm it with a strong-flavoured sauce. It wasn't long before I got tired of looking through curry and casserole recipes and settled on making a simple sandwich.

My wild boar came in strips of the perfect size for sandwiches. If yours doesn't, you're going to have to cut it. Place one wild boar strip for each diner into a bowl along with two or three cloves of garlic, season with black pepper, cover with olive oil, seal in cling film and refrigerate for a few hours or overnight. Remove from refrigerator a hour before cooking. Pre-heat broiler to medium-high.

Take a tomato, slice it and season it with salt and pepper. Set aside.

Broil for 5-7 minutes a side. While I'm normally against cooking anything well-done, you want to make sure your boar is properly cooked as it's wild-shot. Season the tenderloins with salt and pepper when you turn them. Season them again when you remove them. If you feel like having bacon in your sandwich, broil it now.

Meanwhile, prepare the rest of the sandwich. Open the rolls--I hope you bought nice ones. Add some rocket leaves, finely sliced red onion, the bacon (if using) and the wild boar tenderloin. Top a slice or two of tomato.

Really, that's all I did. And I was very happy with it. I intend, next time, to maybe cook some kebabs over a coal fire.