Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Grilled Wild Boar Loin

My friend Jerry shot a wild boar in central California a week or so ago. It was about 160 to 170 pounds.
He dressed it, brought it back locally to have it butchered 
and gave me a beautiful piece of loin meat. 

I put on a little olive oil, some sea salt, pepper and a little bit of red pepper flakes. I put the two outer burners of my four burner grill on high and cooked the loin over the two un-lit burners in the center. The meat was absolutely beautiful. I cooked it medium to medium rare.
It was extremely lean, but cooked the way it was, it was still nice and juicy, had no gaminess whatsoever and a wonderful mild flavor. My granddaughter, Ella, loved it so much that I had to set aside several pieces for Jerry to make sure he got some. 
We ate the whole thing and could have eaten twice as much. We had it with a wonderful meal of (a) fried green chard (a first for me), (b) roasted Brussels sprouts, beets (the first time I have roasted beets) and potatoes, and (c) kale salad with avocado, fennel, scallions, beets, lemon and walnut hummus. 
I'm currently reading Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food, and today's meal would make him proud. On pages 170 to 171, he states, "Wild animals... are worth adding to your diet when you have the opportunity. Wild game generally has less saturated fat and more omega-3 fatty acids than domesticated animals, because most wild animals we eat themselves eat a diverse diet of plants rather than grain." 

3 comments:

  1. You've fed me some pretty bizarre things over the last few years. I've been waiting for something this good. Delicious.

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  2. That last paragraph is very interesting. It makes sense, but I'd never thought of wild game that way.

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  3. That pig was not that heavy. Maybe 100# I've been hunting them for 40 years. a pig has to be over 42" to even be close. Still a good post.

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