Recipe: Jagged Young Boar with Bitter Chocolate

The day before

1- Prepare the marinade. Take a large container and place in it: the pieces of boar meat, vegetables, the little bag of spices, the wine, vinegar and dried cep. Season with salt and the cracked pepper and place in the fridge for at least 12 hours.

2- The same day, put the cream, dried cep powder, salt and pepper and a pinch of nutmeg into a bowl, mix well, cover and put in the fridge for 12h.

The next day

3- Start your oven at 190C (374F).

4- Take two large frying pans and heat them up, put 25g of pork belly in each one to sweat off.

5- In the meantime, strain the meat off the marinade.

6- Put 9 pieces of marinated meat in each frying pan and sauté them until they get a nice golden brown colour on all sides. Then clear them into a sieve making sure to collect the dripings.

7- Take a cast iron pot, pour the dripings in it and add all the vegetables of the marinade. Cover and gently cook for ten minutes.

8- Then, add the pieces of boar and the flour, stir constantly, while cooking the flour for 5 minutes. Then add the wine from the marinade, stir again for 5 minutes. Bring to the boil. Cover and put in the oven for 1h30 to 2h.

9- Meanwhile, make the macaroni gratin.

a) Cook your pasta in 3lit of simmering, salted water for 12 minutes.

b) In a large bowl, break the eggs and beat them. Add the cream made the day before and mix well.

c) When the pasta are done, strain them and pour few drops of olive oil on them.

d) Take an oven dish, lay half of the pasta at the bottom of it, pour half the egg mixture on them. Then put all the dices of foie gras, cover them with the rest of the pasta and finish with the egg mixture left over.

10- Test the doneness of the meat*. Then, strain all the pieces of meat one by one and set them aside. Blitz the sauce and pass it through a fine sieve. Put it into a clean pot and add the chocolate. Finally, add the pieces of meat to the sauce and bring to the boil.

11- Cook your macaroni gratin in a preheated oven to 180C (356F) for 35 minutes.

As you can see you can prepare this dish a couple of days in advance. Then, on the day slowly heat up the meat and put the pasta in the oven for 20 minutes at 150C (300F).

You can either serve the meat in a bowl garnished of heart shaped fryed toast and the pasta as it is. Or serve it platted. In this case, cut some portions of the gratin with a 10cm (4 inch)cutter that you will place at the center of each plattes. Place 3 pieces of meat on the top of it along with 2 small heart shaped fried toasts.

* If your are using meat from an older animal add an extra 30 minutes of cooking time.