#Recipe — Wild Boar Stew (or not?)

So, you just happen to have a friend who is a really good hunter, and you see he shot a wild boar and is offering the meat on his Instagram. What a great opportunity to cook something after a while (because busy, because no one to cook for, …, yeah I have a lot of excuses). You write him up, and you agree on lunch.

Saturday morning, I am with my mom at an IKEA store, buying some tools for my kitchen and flat in general. David is calling, my hunter friend, he needs to give me the meat, and we agree on Monday lunch. In just about an hour or so, I am holding a nice piece of wild board shoulder in my hands. As I plan to go with my mom home, we drop off all the stuff I just bought at my flat, including the meat.

Driving home, few minutes into the journey, I suddenly realize that I left the meat in one of the bags with IKEA stuff. How lucky. We quickly return back, and I put it in the fridge.

Monday morning, I work for 2 hours, then, as planned, I leave to buy last two missing things for the recipe I chose to cook.

As I am walking towards the French bakery “U Gaela” I am passing a French — Italian store. I need to buy few baguettes but the second thing missing is a Port wine. “Well, they must have it at such store,” goes through my head, “at least I won’t have to look for a wine shop.” Unfortunatelly, they don’t have Spanish/Portuguese wine at French-Italian stores, fortunately, though, they have an Italian alternative, so I give it a try and buy a bottle. Apart from that, they also happen to have those baguettes I need (they are from the bakery I mentioned; Normally, I would prefer to go there directly, but I don’t have much time now, so I really appreciate it).

30 minutes before my friend should arrive, I am starting to cook. After reading through it, I realize I should have prepared it yesterday, too late, it’s going to be good anyway.

So, what’s the recipe? Here it goes:

- wild boar shoulder (but any dark meat good for stews should be fine)
- 3/4 liters of dry red wine
- 200 ml of Port/Gran Chef wine
- tomatoes from your garden (sliced into 8 pieces, possibly more if they are large)
- spring onions (I used 10pcs)
- garlic (1–2 cloves)
- flour
- High-quality olive oil
- 2 bay leafs
- beef broth
- fresh baguette
- water

Time: 15 minutes in the evening for preparation (this can be skipped, it will still taste pretty good), 1 hour for cooking the next day

The marinade

1. Take a bowl (big enough to fit all the meat, onions and wine) and pour the wine into it (both).
2. In case you are preparing this the evening before, put whole onions into the wine, otherwise, cut them into tiny pieces to release the taste more quickly.
3. Slice the garlic cloves, put it into the bowl
4. Slice the meat into small cubes (2x2x2cm if you want to be precise
   :D) and put it into the bowl.
5. Leave it like this for at least 20 minutes, the longer, the better

The meal

1. Take the meat out of the marinade (and keep it, just separate the onions with garlic and the wine) and wrap it in flour
2. Heat the olive oil in a medium pot (big enough to accommodate all the stuff mentioned above), then add the meat, cooking it until it gets the dark color (3–4 minutes)
3. While doing this, prepare your tomatoes and heat up your beef broth
4. Add tomatoes, water, beef broth and bay leafs to the mix, then cook for 15–20 minutes
5. Finally, add ~0.5l of the wine mix and the onion-garlic mix (amount depends on your taste, I don’t recommend adding all of it), cook for another 10 minutes or until it thickens.
6. Eat while still warm with the fresh baguettes