Food
Wild Boar Pie
17/12/14
As December draws to an end, the media turns its attention from your undying need for a new watch/perfume/penguin and focuses on telling you something else very important instead: how hideously fat you are. Remember all those mince pies and goose fat you were told to eat last month? Well now you’ve got to pay for it; preferably by eating nothing but cereal and Ryvita until next Christmas.
Personally, I’d rather be fat.
January is the most miserable month of the year. This might not be a bona fide fact, as I couldn’t be bothered to look it up, but I for one, am definitely feeling below par. Jolly old Christmas has been and gone, we’ve got no money left (thanks to jolly old Christmas), it’s cold and dark outside, and of course we’re all hideously fat. The last thing you need to add to that list, in my professional (not professional) opinion, is a diet. What you need is a delicious cream cake. Or a comforting stew. Or any dish where the main ingredient is potato. Basically, food that tastes like a cuddle.
I haven’t always been so laissez faire about my calorific consumption. Oh no, I used to obsessively check packets and monitor sat fats, I even used to go to the *whispers* gym. My downfall, predictably, came in the form of a boyfriend and ‘getting comfortable’. It’s a bit difficult to maintain your quest to be a size six when your partner’s main food groups are butter, cream and bacon. But you know what? I’m exactly the same weight now as I was then. Which makes me very resentful about all those years I was unnecessarily eating margarine.
I can’t tell you how liberating it is, eschewing all intentions of healthy eating whilst everyone else is subsisting on broth and green juices, “Oh, you’re having roasted cauliflower for dinner are you? Sounds delish. Me? I’m having a cheeseburger. Bon appétit!”
Now, I am not endorsing total gluttony here, or encouraging anyone to ignore a clinical weight issue, but what I would like to put an end to is the perpetual desire of the masses to be just slightly thinner. Spending the whole year yo-yoing up and down and inevitably ending up back where you started.
Why not just say ‘sod it’ this year and join me and me and my extra half a stone on the ‘couldn’t give a shit’ plan? Eat sensibly most of the time, go for a couple of walks, avoid deep-fried Mars Bar benders. I can personally recommend having a small child as an excellent fat burning tool – I work off at least 1000 calories a day with the stress of trying to stop him flinging himself into traffic/fire/cat faeces.
With that in mind, I don’t think there’s anything more comforting and less diety than a good pie. It’ll fill you up, banish the winter hump, and make all your friends doing Weight Watchers terribly jealous. In some great coincidental clash, you will notice that this month’s Big Eat Out (see previous page) is also pie based, so if you can’t be bothered to make your own you could do a lot worse than take a little trip to Flaming Galah’s.
Wild Boar Pie
Serves 3-4
Firstly, you might be thinking ‘where does this poncy cow expect me to get wild boar’? The answer: Lidl (I know, I was as surprised as you are).
500g diced wild boar
1 tbsp plain flour
Slug of oil
2 medium carrots, diced
Stick celery, finely chopped
1 white onion, chopped
2 sprigs rosemary
1 glass red wine
500ml of beef stock
1 egg, beaten
500g packet of shortcrust pastry
Heat the oil in a medium sized casserole dish, then add the boar meat and dust with the flour. Once starting to brown, add the carrots, onion, rosemary and celery and fry till softened. Add the wine/ stock and simmer for around an hour, until the liquid has reduced and the meat is tender.
Transfer the mixture to a suitable pie dish and roll out the pastry to about 1-2cm thick. Brush the edges of the dish with egg and place the pastry on top in your desired arrangement, then generously brush the top with the egg too (make sure to do this evenly or you’ll end up with a mottled effect, like I did). Remember to pierce the pastry, so that air can escape, then bake on gas mark 5 for around 30 mins, till golden.