No. 2048

Boar (wild Pig) Tenderloins Roasted, Haunch, Robert Sauce, Cutlets Sauted

Sanglier (Cochon Sauvage) Cuissot Sauce Robert, Filets Rotis Cotelettes Sautees

Only young ones can be used. They can be roasted without marinating, and as the meats are covered with fat it is useless to lard them. Roasted pieces are served from the haunch, saddle, tenderloin or loin, basted with its own gravy or else a very highly seasoned sauce.

For the Haunch.—After the boar is singed and well trimmed, scald it in boiling water, then saw off the end or handle bone an inch and a half from the knuckle bone and marinate in a cooked cold marinade (No. 114) or eight days; drain, wipe and wrap it in strong sheets of buttered paper, including the vegetables and marinade; lay it on a cradle spit (No. 116) or in the oven to roast for one hour and a half, more or less according to the size of the haunch or leg, being careful to baste every twenty minutes with the grease from the dripping pan. Ten minutes before serving unwrap and remove the buttered paper, also the cracknel; glaze the haunch in the oven and place it on a dish to trim with a fancy frill (No. 10), pour gravy (No. 404) around and serve a Robert sauce (No. 533) in a sauce-boat.

Boar's Tenderloins are prepared by paring, larding, marinating and roasting, then dressing on croutons and serving with shallot and fine herb sauce (No. 537).

The Cutlets are pared and sauted drained and trimmed with frills (No. 10), afterward dressed in a circle; drain the fat from the pan, detach the glaze with white wine and espagnole sauce (No. 414), reduce; then strain it through a tammy and pour it in the middle of the cutlets.

← No. 2047 Blackbirds a la Degrange Venison & Large Game No. 2049 Young Wild Boar—Quarter—Garnished with Cutle →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer writes for a kitchen with a spit, a cross-referenced sauce library and a butcher who can hand over a whole leg of young boar. The method translates well, but two things need attention before anything else: the internal temperature and the length of the marinade.

Cook it throughWild boar and feral pig are a recognized source of Trichinella and should be taken to 160F at the thickest part of the haunch, checked with a probe rather than by time. Farmed boar is safer but is still pork and belongs at the same temperature. Ranhofer's hour and a half is a starting estimate for a small leg only.
Eight days is too long unrefrigeratedThe original presumably relies on a cold larder or cellar, and a cooked wine marinade of this type would have done some preservative work. Marinate in the refrigerator instead, and two to three days is ample for flavor on a leg. A week-long soak at modern refrigerator temperature tends to leave the surface meat gray and soft without adding anything.
Cooked cold marinadeNo. 114 is Ranhofer's cooked marinade, a wine-based preparation that is simmered and then cooled; check the cross-reference for its exact composition. The recipe's own wording, "cooked cold marinade," is the point to observe: it must be cold before the meat goes in.
Buttered paper, not foilThe paper wrapping is a barding layer that steams the joint in its own aromatics and keeps the lean end from drying. Heavy parchment brushed with butter does the job; foil traps too much moisture and you lose the glazing step at the end. What Ranhofer means by "the cracknel" is not explained here; whatever it is, it comes off with the paper before glazing.
Oven and spitThe cradle spit can be replaced with a rack in a roasting pan. Ranhofer gives no temperature; a moderate oven, in the region of 350F, works, basting from the pan every twenty minutes as directed, then unwrap and raise the heat for the final glaze.
The saucesRobert sauce (No. 533) is onion sweated in butter, white wine reduced, brown sauce and a finish of mustard added off the heat -- mustard must not boil or it turns bitter. No. 537 is the shallot and fine-herb sauce for the tenderloins. Espagnole (No. 414) is the classic brown sauce; a good reduced veal stock stands in for it.
Larding and fatRanhofer says larding the haunch is useless because the animal carries its own fat. Modern farmed boar and most feral pig are much leaner, so barding the joint with sheets of pork fat under the paper is worth doing. The tenderloins he does direct you to lard.
TammyA tammy is a fine woolen straining cloth wrung between two people. A fine chinois, or a sieve lined with a double layer of cheesecloth, gives the same clarity.
YieldRanhofer gives no weights. A trimmed boar haunch of roughly 6 to 8 lb will serve eight to twelve, and two small chops per person is a fair allowance for the cutlets. The recipe has them arranged in a ring with the reduced sauce poured into the center rather than over the meat, so the frilled bones stay clean.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some three decades as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and its game chapters reflect a period when American restaurants still bought from open game markets. "Sanglier" is the European wild boar; a New York kitchen of the 1890s would more plausibly have been supplied with feral hog or a young animal from a private preserve than with imported European boar, though Ranhofer does not say. He does specify young animals and notes that they arrive fat enough not to need larding. Robert sauce is among the older named sauces in French cookery -- it is generally said to be mentioned by Rabelais in the sixteenth century -- and its mustard-and-onion base has long been associated with pork. The cradle spit and the buttered-paper wrapping belong to the same older tradition: roasting a large joint over open heat demanded a physical barrier and constant basting, and Ranhofer gives the spit and the oven as alternatives here.