Last week Tonio, a neighbor, came to the house with a shoulder of wild boar, leg and hoof attached.

Tonio:  One of my friends killed a boar and gave me this shoulder.  My wife and I don’t know how to cook it.  Do you?

Me:  Yes I do, but before that enters my kitchen, you’re going to remove that leg.

Tonio:  How?

Me:  Try a saw.

It’s a shame that I didn’t get a picture of the thing with leg on but I was appalled by the coal black leg hide attached to the satanistic hoof and more concerned about him trying to get it in my door and kitchen in that condition 🙂

It really was a lovely roast.  My biggest concern was to cook it just right without drying it out.  Boar is a lot leaner than pork, lacking the natural marbling of fat that keeps a pork roast moist during roasting.

I wasn’t confident in dry roasting the boar on a rack, depending on basting to keep the juices in, so I seared it, set it on top of herbs, garlic and onions, then poured over and in some hard cider, covered it with foil and roasted for 1 1/2 hrs.  I think 😀

I mixed some Granny Smith apple chunks with halved fingerling potatoes and added them to the roasting pan, recovered the pan and cooked and additional 45 minutes, I’m pretty sure.

I made this a while ago but the picnic table attendees are still talking about it and suggesting other game I could cook.  I assured them I would be happy to cook any game as long as it has the supermarket look and not the tied to the hood of the car/road kill presentation.