2021 Giro d’Italia - Stage 11: Perugia to Montalcino
After a welcomed day-of-rest, I am back in the cooking saddle and the riders are headed out of Umbria and into Tuscany! Today’s stage will end in Montalcino and, as such, celebrates the local offering in the official Brunello di Montalcino Wine Stage. Last year’s delicious wine stage celebrated DOCG Prosecco from Valdobbiadene and today’s meal will be no less tasty than that one. I highly recommend this Brunello as well, but it is not cheap!
There is a dish I love. I always seek it out on menus when going to Italian restaurants because it’s somewhat of a rare dish to find (much like today’s stage includes strade bianche - the first time in 11 years the signature, white gravel roads will feature for a prominent portion of the route). Some restaurants do better than others. The last time I tried this, the featured item tasted soggy - never a good thing and it made me apprehensive to try to make this meal at home. But, this dish does NOT disappoint.
Is it the beautifully exotic name of the dish? Is it the rare protein which is prominently featured? Is it because this is a perfect crossover of my Italian and Irish familial roots? The McCann family crest is adorned with today’s featured ingredient: cinghiale a/k/a wild boar! This sugo is out-of-this-world delicious and slowly braises the boar for no less than 3 hours until its wild self finally relents and relaxes - what can I say, it takes us McCann’s a while to relax! Paired with this deep delicious sauce is one of the few pastas that originates from Tuscany: Maltagliati, wide-cut parallelograms with ribbon-cut edges. I have you covered with both recipes, below!
Maltagliati al sugo di Cinghiale (Pasta with Wild Boar Sauce)
adapted from The Italian Regional Cookbook, Valentina Harris &
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Marcella Hazan
When cooking a dish with wine, you should use a more affordable option (not cheap, and still something you could enjoy drinking), but pair the meal with a more refined bottle of the same variety.
Sauce
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Onion, fine-diced
Large carrot, fine-diced
Celery stalk, fine-diced
4 oz. prosciutto, chopped
1 lb. boar, cubed, and seasoned with kosher salt and black pepper
1.25 cups of Brunello di Montalcino or other full-bodied red wine
1 tsp fennel seed
Pinch of cumin
5 tbsp tomato paste
~3 oz. hot beef stock
Small can of whole tomatoes
Butter
Parmigiano-Reggiano
Pasta
2 cups 00 flour
4 eggs
In a small pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat and sauté the onion, carrot, celery, and prosciutto for a few minutes, until the onions become translucent. Add in the boar and brown all over, for about 10 minutes or so.
Pour in the wine, fennel and cumin. Cover and simmer for an hour.
Dilute the tomato paste with the warm beef stock. Add it to the pot of boar, along with half of the canned tomatoes and continue to simmer for an additional hour.
Add in the remaining tomatoes, and simmer for another, final hour. Adjust the seasoning at the end of the 3 hours of simmering. If the meat has not fallen apart at this point, via stirring, use the spoon to break up the meat. Hold the sauce at a low temperature.
While the boar cooks for the final hour, prepare your pasta by following directions from my prior post. Once you have rolled out the pasta, use a fluted pasta wheel and cut the pasta sheets into ~1.5”-wide ribbons. At ~3” intervals, use the pasta wheel and cut apart in a diagonal fashion.
When ready to serve, place a large skillet over medium heat and add the boar to the skillet along with a couple of tablespoons of butter. Then, add in the cooked pasta along with some of the cooking water, and stir to combine until the pasta are coated with sauce. You will probably need to complete this process in two batches in order to not overfill the pan and over-work the cooked pasta.
Give the plated pasta a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and top with freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano and freshly cracked black pepper. ______________________________ Copyright 2021, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.