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Wild Boar Cutlets
Take the under fillets of a wild boar; cut them into slices three-quarters of an inch thick and the shape and size of a cutlet. Lay these in an earthen pan, cover with equal parts of vinegar and white wine, and add a head of garlic and a little salt. Leave them for a couple of hours or longer; drain, and dry them with a soft cloth. Sprinkle over them a little finely-chopped parsley, thyme, and sage, and fry them in butter till done enough. Take them up, and pour a little of the marinade into the pan with the butter. When it is quite hot, put the cutlets in a dish, pour the sauce over, and serve garnished with sliced gherkins. If preferred, the cutlets, instead of being fried, may be larded and stewed in a very small quantity of rich gravy glazed, and served with Robert sauce. Time to fry the cutlets, fifteen to twenty minutes. Probable cost, uncertain.
A straightforward game cutlet with an acid marinade and a pan sauce. The one thing to watch is the frying time, which was written for meat cooked well past what a modern cook would call done.
- The cut"Under fillets" means the tenderloins that run along the inside of the backbone. On a wild boar these are small, so the number of cutlets from a pair will vary with the animal; expect enough for two or three people. Farmed boar sold as "wild boar" at butchers works the same way, as does pork tenderloin.
- Doneness, and why it matters hereWild boar can carry Trichinella, so unlike venison it should not be served rare. Cook to an internal 160F (71C) and rest briefly. That does not require the full fifteen to twenty minutes given here for thin slices; a three-quarter-inch cutlet in hot butter will reach temperature in roughly four to six minutes a side, and the longer time will dry it out.
- A head of garlicThe Victorian phrase means a whole bulb, not a single clove. Bruise the cloves rather than chopping them; they are there to perfume the marinade and are discarded with it.
- The marinadeEqual parts vinegar and white wine is aggressive by current taste. Two hours is plenty for tenderloin, and going much beyond four will soften the surface unpleasantly. The recipe does not say which vinegar; a wine or cider vinegar will be gentler than distilled white.
- Drying the meatThe instruction to dry with a cloth is the hinge of the fried version. Meat straight from an acid marinade will steam rather than brown, and the herbs will not adhere.
- The pan saucePouring raw marinade into hot butter gives a sharp, split sauce. Let it bubble and reduce by half so the vinegar cooks off, then swirl in a little cold butter off the heat.
- Larding, and the alternativeLarding means threading strips of pork back fat through the meat with a needle. If that is not practical, wrap each cutlet in a thin sheet of unsmoked fatback or barding fat before stewing, which is what the technique is for on a lean game animal.
- Robert sauceThe classic sauce Robert is a brown sauce with onion sweated in butter, white wine and vinegar reduced, and mustard stirred in at the end off the heat. If you make it from stock rather than a demi-glace, reduce well so it coats.
By the late nineteenth century the wild boar had been extinct in Britain for centuries, and any that reached an English kitchen came from continental Europe, from a park herd, or from a shooting party abroad. Hence the frank "Probable cost, uncertain" — the compilers could price a leg of mutton to the penny but had no market rate for this. The treatment is French in outline: a vinegar-and-wine marinade to tame strong, lean, muscular meat, and the option of sauce Robert, one of the oldest named sauces in the French repertoire, mentioned by Rabelais in the sixteenth century and long associated with pork. The gherkin garnish belongs to the same family of thinking, sharpness set against rich dark meat. Wild boar has since been reintroduced to parts of Britain and is farmed commercially, so the recipe is more makeable now than when it was printed.