Atalaia Wild Boar Stew with Alentejo Bread

The Atalaia wild boar stew is not the same dish as roast wild boar: the meat slowly braises with onion, garlic and pepper, and the sauce soaks slices of bread with boiled potatoes. It is a one-pot preparation, made to arrive hot at the table and to be enjoyed without haste.

A collection from Atalaia, in Gavião

The Alentejo Gastronomic Charter records the dish under the name “Wild Boar in Sauce / Stew”, based on an interview with Cassilda Marques Chambel, a cook in Atalaia, in the municipality of Gavião, in 2012. The source describes two ways of serving the meat: with boiled potatoes on the side or, as here, over bread with potatoes and sauce. Choosing the stew allows Alentejo bread to form part of the dish, not merely the table.

Serves: 4 people
Total time: about 3 hours, plus 8 hours marinating in the refrigerator

Ingredients for 4 people

• 1 kg wild boar meat suitable for consumption, in medium-sized cubes
• 500 ml dry white wine for marinating (discard the marinade)
• 2 large onions (about 350 g), chopped
• 4 garlic cloves (about 20 g): 2 for the marinade and 2 for the stew
• 800 g potatoes (about 5 medium potatoes), quartered
• 100 ml olive oil
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 cloves
• 30 g garden pepper paste (about 2 tablespoons)
• 1 g ground black pepper
• 1 g ground chilli
• 6 g salt; adjust only after tasting the pepper paste
• 400 ml water for the meat
• 1.2 l water for boiling the potatoes
• 300 g Alentejo bread, such as Pão Tradicional Alentejano – Forno de Lenha – 500g, thinly sliced

Preparation

1. Make the garlic and wine marinade. Place the wild boar cubes in a non-metallic bowl with the 500 ml white wine and 2 crushed garlic cloves (10 g). Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours. Before cooking, drain the meat well and discard the marinade and garlic completely, as indicated by the source.
2. Brown the wild boar. Heat the 100 ml olive oil in a wide pot. Brown the drained meat in two batches, about 4 minutes per batch, so as not to overcrowd the pot. Return all the meat to the pot and add the onions, the remaining 2 chopped garlic cloves (10 g), bay leaf, cloves, pepper paste, black pepper and chilli. Stir for 5 minutes over medium heat.
3. Braise until tender. Add the 400 ml water, cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook for about 1 hour 45 minutes to 2 hours 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the wild boar is completely cooked and fork-tender. If the sauce reduces before the meat becomes tender, add small amounts of hot water to prevent it from sticking. Taste the sauce before adding the 6 g salt, as the pepper paste may already be salty. Remove the cloves and bay leaf at the end.
4. Boil the potatoes. When the meat has about half an hour left to cook, bring the 1.2 l water to a boil in another pot. Add the potato quarters and boil for 15 to 20 minutes, until tender but still intact. Drain them.
5. Assemble the stew. Arrange the bread slices in a deep serving dish or in four deep plates. Distribute the potatoes and wild boar on top and pour over the hot sauce from the pot. Serve immediately, so the bread absorbs the sauce without disappearing into it.

Tips for getting the sauce right

Wild boar needs time: look for tender meat, with no raw parts, rather than relying on a fixed number of minutes. The saltiness of pepper paste varies; taste it before adding salt. If the pot dries out, add only enough hot water to continue braising and leave enough sauce to pour over the bread. Use game meat obtained and prepared by an appropriate source for consumption.

Pairing: Pêra-Manca Tinto at the table

Serve Pêra-Manca Tinto 2019 – DOC Alentejo–Évora with the stew, at around 17 °C. The Aragonez and Trincadeira grape varieties produce a red wine aged for an extended period in wood and bottle, with enough structure to accompany the intense flavour of the wild boar and the pepper sauce. The bottle is for the glass: the white wine used in the marinade is discarded and does not need to be Pêra-Manca.

Advance preparation and storage

You can braise the meat the day before and keep it covered in the refrigerator once cooled. Consume within 2 days and reheat completely in the pot. Boil the potatoes and pour the sauce over the bread only just before serving.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use the marinade for the sauce?

Not in this recipe: the source instructs you to discard the garlic and wine marinade. Drain the meat well and use the measured water for braising.

Why does the bread go on the bottom?

In the stew version described in the collection, the bread receives the potatoes, wild boar and sauce, absorbing some of the flavour from the pot.

Other game dishes

Traditional Alentejo Wood-Fired Oven Bread gives this stew substance. If you prefer another technique for the same ingredient, see our wood-fired oven roast wild boar.

Source

Alentejo Gastronomic Charter (2013), p. 194. “Wild Boar in Sauce / Stew”, collected in Atalaia, Gavião, in an interview with Cassilda Marques Chambel by Adelaide Martins (Leader-Sor), in 2012.

Recipe collected in Alto Alentejo, adapted by Herdade do Estacal for the “À Mesa com o Alentejo” blog. We kept the garlic and wine marinade with white wine and garlic, discarded before cooking, the braising method and serving the stew over bread and potatoes. We established quantities for four people for the bread, seasonings and liquids not measured in the source, as well as cooking times and indicators; Pêra-Manca Tinto is only a suggested pairing.

Illustrative image generated for this article.