“Daube de sanglier à la Provençale” is one of my favorite winter dishes. It is a perfect winter dish, when the weather is cold, the food is hot and goes perfectly with red wine. Winter is hunting season in France and as a hunter I bring home a piece of boar almost every weekend because the hunting club to which I belong we share all the wild boars that were harvested on the day. Depending on how many boars were harvested on the day I might be coming home with as much as half a wild boar.
I either process the boar straight away or let it set overnight if the temperature is low enough. I normally use back strap or back leg or shoulder for the daube. The meat gets cubed into squares of around 3x3 cm and then marinated for between 8 to 48 hours.
The name “daube” comes from the word adobe. That is because the meat was marinated and baked in a clay dish. It wasn’t cooked on a stove, it was put in the coals and ashes of the hearth and left for several hours until the meat was fall apart tender. The dish would then be taken away from the heat source and would be reheated slowly for about an hour and a half the next day. Then it would be enjoyed with either pasta or mashed potatoes. Along with a baguette and a good bottle of red wine, of course.
This version of daube is made in a cast iron pot on the hearth. It can be made on a barbeque or on a stovetop. The heart or barbeque allows the smoke to get into the dish and lends an old world authenticity to it.
Start marinating the meat at least 8 hours in advance. 24 hours is better.
Ingredients
2 kilograms of wild boar meat, cubed into pieces of three by three centimeters
2l of red wine
3 carrots
2 onions
200 grams of smoked or unsmoked bacon cut into lardons
1 bouquet garni consisting of thyme, rosemary and laurel
Garlic to taste – I love it and usually put in around 5 houses
2 ripe tomatoes – you can use canned tomatoes in a pinch
200 grams of black olives. I prefer greek style olives.
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
4 salted anchovy fillets
Mezina or cornstarch
Step 1
Prepare the marinade.
Chop the onions and carrots and add to a pot. Add some olive oil and brown it a little bit. Let it cool down and add to a non-reactive contained like enamelware or a clay pot. A plastic container would work as well, just don’t put it in a stainless steel container or something like that. The acid in the wine will react with it and you will be able to taste it.
Step 2
Add the wine, the boar meat, vegetables and salt and pepper into your container. Cover it and put it in the fridge for at least 8 hours. The wine doesn’t have to be a great wine but don’t use plonk either.
Step 3
When the meat is done marinating, drain and conserve the liquid. Pat the meat dry and roll it around in a bit of cornstarch or normal flour. This will thicken your daube. Put oil into your cooking vessel over a hot fire. Now brown the meat, not adding all of it at once to prevent steaming. Fry it in batches until it is all browned. Fry the bacon until almost crispy then at the very end, add the anchovy fillets and cook for 2 minutes. The anchovy fillets will disappear and lend richness to the daube. Add a cup of the left over liquid to the pot to deglaze it. Scrape the bottom well to loosen all the goodness.

Step 4
Add the vegetables and olives to the dish. Add enough of the left over marinade to the dish and cover and let it simmer over a low heat for at least 2 hours. Check occasionally that there is still enough liquid left and add more as needed.

Step 5
You can eat the dish immediately, but do yourself a favor and remove it from the heat when it is done and let it cool all the way down and the reheat it slowly the next day. Ideally on a hearth but it can also be done in the oven. You can stir in 100ml of crème fraiche just before serving along with a knob of butter.
Serve over your favorite starch. Pasta and mashed potatoes are the most common. My family prefers it over lemon and rosemary rice. Baked potatoes will also work.

It is a dish that takes a bit of time and planning to get right. But the end results are surely worth it.

Notes
As I said it does take a bit of time to do in the classic style. I do sometimes make it in a pressure cooked. The result is less good but still not bad at all. The dish can also be prepared in a slow cooker. If you don’t like wine in your food you can replace the wine with dissolved stock cubes.
If you don’t have access to wild boar meat the recipe can also be made with beef brisket.