Wild Boar Ragu with Tagliatelle

Ingredients

Marinade:

5 Cups of Good Italian White Wine

2/3 Cups of Olive Oil

6 Whole Garlic Cloves

2 Sprigs of Chopped Fresh Rosemary

1 Tsp of Fresh Ground Black Pepper

1 Tbsp of Kosher Salt

Ragu:

1 lb of Shogun Farms Wild Boar

1 Cup of  finely chopped Sweet Onion

1 Cup of finely chopped Carrot

1 Cup of finely chopped Celery

10-12 Cherry Tomatoes

2 cloves whole garlic

1/2 Tsp chili flakes

3/4 bottle of Good Italian White Wine

1 Tbsp of Fresh Rosemary

Salt

Fresh Ground Black Pepper

Olive Oil

All-Purpose flour for dredging

3/4  Lb of Fresh or Dried Tagliatelle

Grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Directions

Marinade:

Combine all the ingredients for the marinade in a bowl and whisk until all incorporated. Chop boar butt or fatty boneless chops into small cubes and combine in an air-tight container or zip-lock bag and marinate in the refrigerator of at least 24 hours.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees

In a large Dutch oven, on medium-high heat, coat bottom pot with olive oil. Add garlic cloves and chili flakes, sauté for 3-4 minutes. Dredge marinated boar pieces in flour and add to oil, lightly brown and remove from Dutch oven and set aside on a plate. Heat more olive oil and add carrots, onion and celery. Sauté till translucent, add salt, pepper and rosemary. Add browned boar back into the Dutch oven, pour over wine, add tomatoes, cover and slow cook in the oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside

In a large pot of boiling water, add 1 Tbsp of salt. Add pasta and cook for 4-5 minutes for fresh pasta. For dried pasta, follow cooking instructions on package. Remove and from water and set aside 2 cups of pasta water.

In a large sauté pan with the Ragu heated on medium high heat, add the cooked pasta and toss, slowly add some of the set aside  pasta water to the pasta mixture to loosen the Ragu and to bind the sauce to the pasta add some Parmigiano cheese and toss for 2-3 minutes. Plate, garnish with some more Parmigiano, and serve.

Serves 4-6

Cook Time: 1 hr 45 mins
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Marinate: Over-Night
Recipe Courtesy of Chef Adrian De Berardinis

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Benefits of Wild Hog Meat

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The Benefits of Wild Boar Meat Surpass Beef, Pork and Even Chicken!

For centuries, wild boar meat has been a delicacy enjoyed by the aristocracy of Europe. It is increasingly sought after by chefs and consumers looking for a unique flavor.

What Does Wild Boar Taste Like?

Wild boar meat has a strong, nutty, rich flavor that is unique and often not comparable to other meats.The meat is not gamey tasting, it’s meat is darker in color with a distinct, with a flavorful taste. It is not prone to illness or disease.

What’s the Difference Between Wild Boar and Pig?

It comes down to diet and exercise. Farm raised pigs are fed a homogeneous diet compared to that of wild boars which will give a more complex, deeper flavor. Wild boars are far more physically active than their farm raised counterparts which will alter their muscle/fat composition. Wild Boar are not kept in enclosures as are pigs. They are free to roam and forage for their food.

Although you may expect it to resemble pork, wild boar is a dark red meat. Unlike its domestic cousin, wild boar is also very lean and low in cholesterol. Wild boar is an excellent alternative to beef and pork for those who want food that is good for them without sacrificing taste and quality.

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Why You Should be Eating More Wild Pigs Right Now

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It started as a hankering for osso buco. It ended with fresh wild boar shanks, and a lesson in the wild pig overpopulation problem that has been steadily creeping across many Southern states for the past 20 years.

I was simply trying to source veal shanks, but in my small, remote town in northern Arizona, veal isn’t easy to come by. Looking for a good plan B, I reached out to a friend who had recently returned from a pig hunt in central Texas with fresh wild boar. “There’s plenty more where that came from,” he informed me as we loaded several meaty shanks into the trunk of my car. And thus began my whirlwind education on how these hogs —which can be particularly delicious —are running amok (particularly in Texas), and what’s being done to stop them.

The overpopulation problem in the United States is actually relatively new. European Wild Boars (also referred to as Russian Boars) were first introduced in Florida and then Texas between the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. As human colonization expanded across the south, both free-ranging (wild) and domestic pig populations were regarded as a necessary source of food. They were hearty and required little care. Most wild pigs found throughout America today are directly related to a combination of Eurasian wild boars and domesticated pigs that have escaped and become feral after spending a few generations in the wild.

But there’s a massive amount of wild hogs is overwhelming farmlands in Texas, and we can’t seem to figure out what to do with them. These wild pigs have become highly adaptable to their environments and have been doing a serious amount of damage agriculturally —with voracious appetites and destructive rooting, they affect agronomic crops as well as pasturelands, staying in an area long enough to devour its resources before moving on. A conservative estimate of the damage in Texas alone is $52 million annually with an additional $7 million needed to repair damage and control the population.

Wild pig meat is much leaner than commercially-raised pork, and far richer-tasting. It’s widely accepted that pigs that are allowed to roam and forage will taste better than pigs kept in pens. A free-range animal grazing on a wide variety of forgeable food gets more muscle-enhancing movement, which generates a deeper, more flavorful meat than an animal confined and raised solely on grain; and there are no antibiotics or hormone supplements to worry about with wild animals. Taking advantage of the wild pigs as food seems like a no-brainer —so why aren’t we eating more of them?

Read the full article here – https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/04/why-you-should-be-eating-more-wild-pigs-right-now.html

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