Christmas leftovers



our Christmas tree



On Boxing Day--another sunny but freezingly cold day we had left overs for lunch. We always try not to have too much left over so that by the 26th everything has been eaten. Some years we mange this, other times we don't. This year we got it pretty much right.

The village butcher had supplied us with a 750g sanglier (mature wild boar) fillet. This gave us 4 portions; 2 for Christmas Day and 2 for Boxing Day. We did decide on the Calvados sauce.

We roasted the sanglier at 180 C for 45 mins in the oven. Then we swtitched the oven off but left it in for another 10 mins. I'd made a few incisions in the fillet and we stuffed them with slices of apple. We coated the fillet in olive oil, freshly ground black pepper, sea salt and a bit of garlic. Into the roasting tray went some water (sanglier is very lean) and oil, some cloves, a star anise, a bay leaf and some ground black pepper. While the fillet was in the oven we put the apple slices which were to go in the sauce in some lemon juice with a shot of calvados, and added a star anise and cloves.

I made the sauce while the fillet was resting. I sauteed off a large shalott in butter, added the apple slices, and a little bit of garlic, salt and pepper. Then I added the roasting juices minus the 'bits' (bay leaf, cloves etc) and a little bit of the liquid which the apple slices had been in. Once it was all reduced I added a very healthy slug of Calvados and flambeed off the alcohol. I finished it with some cream. We had shredded sauteed Savoy cabbage with lardons (bacon bits) as veg.

Tinka sleeping off the sanglier

The wild boar was lovely--very soft meat more the colour of beef than of pork with a distinctive flavour. The sauce went very well with it. We certainly enjoyed it all second time round at lunch on Boxing Day. We even gave the cats a tiny tidbit each...  



No photos of the food sadly. We were so involved in getting it all cooked that we'd eaten it before we realised we'd forgotten...