Young wild boar

Marcassin

What it is

Under six months the animal still carries the pale longitudinal stripes it was born with, and a hunter can read its age from them: they begin to fade at three or four months and are gone by six. It has not yet built the strong-smelling fat of an adult, so the marinade a mature boar needs would only strip it.

In the kitchen

Treat it as veal, not as game: roast the saddle to 58 °C at the centre and stop there. Skip the red wine and juniper marinade entirely — that is for an adult animal, where it has actual work to do.

Goes with

Chestnut Apple Juniper berry Sage Quince Butter Celeriac Black pepper

Same species

Andouillette Boudin blanc Natural casings Caul fat Chorizo Ciauscolo

In season alongside

Hind Roe deer Fallow deer Grey partridge Amethyst deceiver Snipe

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