| Level: | Intermediate |
| Total: | 4 hr 40 min |
| Prep: | 40 min |
| Cook: | 4 hr |
| Yield: | serves 4 as a main course or 8 as a first course |
Ingredients
- 4 cloves garlic, smashed and finely chopped
- 2 carrots, coarsely chopped
- 2 celery ribs, coarsely chopped
- 2 onions, coarsely chopped
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 boneless wild boar shoulder, cut into1/2-inch chunks (about 3 pounds)
- Kosher salt
- 1 cup tomato paste
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 8 juniper berries, finely chopped
- 2 cups red wine
- 5 bay leaves
- 1 bundle fresh thyme
- 1 recipe Chef Anne’s Pappardelle, recipe follows
- Grated Parmigiano, for sprinkling
- Big fat finishing olive oil
- 1 pound all-purpose flour
- 4 whole eggs, plus 1 yolk
- 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt
Instructions
- In a food processor, puree the garlic, carrots, celery and onions into a coarse paste. Reserve.
- Coat a large, wide pot with olive oil and bring to a high heat. Sprinkle the boar generously with salt and add to the hot pan. Cook the boar until it is VERY brown on all sides. Remove the boar from the pan and reserve.
- Ditch the excess oil in the pan. Add a few drops of new oil and add the pureed veggies to the pan. Season them with salt, and brown them until crud forms on the bottom of the pan. Scrape the crud off the bottom of the pan (don’t let the crud burn- it adds A LOT of flavor).
- Return the browned boar to the pan and add the tomato paste and cocoa powder. Stir to combine and cook the tomato paste for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Toss in the chopped juniper berries.
- Add the wine and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let the wine reduce by half.
- Add water to the pan so it covers the boar by about 1-inch. Toss in the bay leaves and thyme bundle. Taste the liquid and season with salt if needed (it will). Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce to a simmer and let cook for 3 hours, adding water as the liquid level reduces. Taste frequently and re-season as needed.
- During the last 30 minutes of cooking time, let the cooking liquid reduce and the sauce get thick.
- Also during the last 30 minutes of cooking, bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat to cook the pappardelle. Pasta water should ALWAYS be well salted. Salty as the ocean! TASTE IT! If your pasta water is under seasoned, it doesn’t matter how good your sauce is, your complete dish will always taste under seasoned. When the water is at a rolling boil add the pappardelle and cook until al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water.
- While the pasta is cooking, remove 1/2 of the ragu from the pot and reserve.
- Drain the pasta and add to the pot with the remaining ragu. Stir or toss the pasta to coat with the sauce. Add some of the reserved sauce if needed to make it about an even ratio between pasta and sauce. Add the reserved pasta cooking water and cook the pasta and sauce together over a medium heat until the water has reduced. Turn off the heat and give a generous drizzle of the big fat finishing olive oil. Toss or stir vigorously. Divide the pasta and sauce into serving bowls or one big pasta bowl. Top with grated Parmigiano. Serve immediately.
- Wine Pairing Suggestion: Chianti
- Place the flour on a clean, dry work surface. Make a hole (this is also called a well) in the center of the flour pile that is about 8 inches wide (bigger is definitely better here). Crack all of the eggs and the yolk into the hole and add the olive oil, salt and 1 to 2 tablespoons water.
- Using a fork, beat the eggs together with the olive oil, water (or more if needed) and salt. Using the fork, begin to incorporate the flour into the egg mixture, be careful not to break the sides of the well or the egg mixture will run all over your board and you will have a big mess! Also, don’t worry about the lumps. When enough flour has incorporated into the egg mixture that it will not run all over the place when the sides of the well are broken, begin to use your hands to really get everything well combined. If the mixture is tight and dry, wet your hands and begin kneading with wet hands. When the mixture has really come together to a homogeneous mixture, THEN you can start kneading.
- When kneading it is VERY important to put your body weight into it, get on top of the dough to really stretch it and not to tear the dough. Using the heels of your palms, roll the dough to create a very smooooooth, supple dough. When done, the dough should look VERY smooth and feel almost velvety. Kneading will usually take from 8 to 10 minutes for an experienced kneader and 10 to 15 for an inexperienced kneader. Put your body weight into it, you need to knead! This is where the perfect, toothsome texture of your pasta is formed. Get in there and have fun!
- When the pasta has been kneaded to the perfect consistency, wrap it in plastic and let rest for at least 1 hour. If using immediately, do not refrigerate.
- To roll the pasta: Cut off 1/3 of the pasta dough, reserve the rest and keep it covered.
- Squash the pasta with the heels of your hands to facilitate it going through the pasta roller. Dust with flour. Put the pasta through the roller set on number one. Roll the dough through 2 times, dusting it with flour if it feels sticky or tacky.
- Fold the pasta into thirds and put it through the machine on number one again.
- Change the setting on the pasta roller to number two and run the pasta through. Continue to roll the pasta through the machine, changing the setting each time to a larger number (this will make the opening on the pasta machine smaller). When you get to the desired thin-ness (I recommend number six), cut the pasta into 10-inch lengths. Flour the dough generously and stack them in a pile. Cover the stack with plastic or a clean tea towel and proceed rolling the rest of the pasta.
- When the pasta is all rolled, take 3 sheets of pasta and fold both ends of the pasta over each other until they meet in the middle.
- Using a sharp knife, cut the pasta rolls into 1-inch widths. Unroll the pasta “ribbons” and dust with semolina and reserve on sheet trays.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 4 servings |
| Calories | 1449 |
| Total Fat | 55 g |
| Saturated Fat | 11 g |
| Carbohydrates | 122 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 14 g |
| Sugar | 14 g |
| Protein | 97 g |
| Cholesterol | 160 mg |
| Sodium | 1987 mg |
Reviews
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this dish! I don’t eat meat so substituted boar with Tofu. I’m also gluten intolerant so used squash pasta. And since I’m sober, I used Diet Coke. AMAZEBALLS
I feel like the people who are saying it was too thin and only tasted like wine must have skipped a few steps. They must not have let the wine reduce by half as the recipe instructs. And remember, if you use bad wine in your cooking, you will end up with bad wine flavour in your final product. I used a dry cabernet and found, while the flavour was present, the savoury of the tomato paste and puree, the bitter of the cocoa created a delicious complex flavour. This will definitely be going into the Sunday night rotation!
This recipe and ingredients caught my attention.I don’t enjoy the meat ingredient…so…went to a local, well known food store and bought all ingrediebts except the boar. Replaced the boar with boneless beef…prime rib. Followed recipe directions.Result…terrific flavor and texture.Anyone who enjoys Boar meat, I encourage to try this recipe.Anyone similar to myself…try this recipe with beef – prime rib. DELICIOUS!Annie, Fremont, CA
I agree with Good Food Good Life the recipe is not for sissies and the flavor of the dish covered the flavor of the Boar. It tasted more like beef bourguignon that any of the wild boar dishes I had in Italy. Really good beef bourguignon but a real disappointment after you’ve had the real thing.
This is not a recipe for someone who does not cook a lot, seasoning it so you don’t taste the tannins from the wine is huge with this dish. I did feel the cocoa was a bit to much.
She did not mention not to cook the meat over a temp of 160 so that it stayed moist and she also fails to mention the pasta only needs 2 minutes or so to cook.
I followed the recipe exactly and did not find the complex flavors she spoke about. I normally love Anne but she missed the mark with this dish.
Having been to Italy and eaten a ton of boar there, my mouth was so excited to dig into a big bowl of this, I hope the garbage disposer enjoyed this more than I did.
Absolutely wonderful…although I cheated and bought the fresh pappardelle from a local Italian gourmet shop. For all the naysayers who claim there is too much wine in the ragu, you probably missed an important step…let the alcohol of the wine cook out for a few minutes before you put the boar back in and attempt to continue cooking. Don’t leave out the juniper berries, and don’t replace them with a sweet substitute…junipers berries are not sweet, they are green, earthy and slightly citrus in flavor, so I don’t see brown sugar being a good replacement for them. I have been to Italy many, many times and this is a very authentic, delicious dish. Well done Anne.
I loved the deep rich color of the ragu and the way it coated the pappardelle, but felt that the flavor of the boar was somewhat lost in the wine. I would suggest using a Chianti or other lighter red wine– full bodied red wines will overpower the flavor of the boar. Could have used just a tad less cocoa powder. I used a tablespoon of brown sugar instead of Juniper berries and it was not too sweet. Overall, will definitely make it again when I have the bucks for the boar!
Chef Anne, this was outrageously good. I got it started on the cooktop then moved it to a 300 oven for the remaining 3 hours. The fresh pappardelle was too perfect with the rich, hearty sauce. It’s definitely a dish for a cold winter dinner. Thank you for another awesome dinner. You rock!!
Awful, I so wish I had listened to doxi before I wasted $30 worth of boar the night before my dinner party. All you will taste is wine, it is very thin, and I too am a very experienced cook and eater. I am off to the store to buy some marinara to try to salvage this disaster.
This is an excellent recipe with truly wonderful flavors. We ordered the boar online from D’Artagnon and would recommend them. We followed the recipe exactly, using Chianti for the red wine as Chef Anne suggested in her show. The cocoa was a leap of faith but really added a beautiful color and flavor dimension. We served this meal to guests with a colorful beet and orange salad, fresh Italian bread, and the Taralucci cookies with caramel dipping sauce from Chef Anne’s new cookbook (YAY- FINALLY A COOKBOOK! and everyone felt it was one of their best meals ever.
Thank you Chef Anne for your recipes, teaching skills, and the great new cookbook. You are the BEST!