Cinghiale Ragu

still life with odori and knife

So our December guest has now flown back across the Atlantic to California, but before she left we made one last iconic Tuscan meal: Cinghiale Ragu with Pici.  This one is rather sentimental for me -- you see, I learned to read (English) on Asterix and Obelix (as well as Pogo, which could account for my somewhat idiosyncratic use of our fair language) the indomitable Gauls who were forever extolling the virtues of wild boar, aka cinghiale.  This is boar hunting season, so it's easy to find here.  Taste wise, cinghiale is to pork as buffalo is to beef -- leaner, darker meat with a more intense flavor.  Our butchers would have ground it for us, but I forgot to ask. 

me "grinding" the cinghiale

A caveat: I don't really know if the style of ragu I make is fiorentino or something else (but there may be a ragu battle in my near future to find out -- new years eve was interesting).  I "learned" to make ragu through having it on pici several times in the Val d'Orcia (in Tuscany, south of Sienna), watching one of our friends make it once and having a very different style ragu (made with cream, not tomatoes) a few times in the north of Italy.  Some of the Ragu I've had here in Florence has been rather different -- more on the lines of a bolognese than what I usually make.


For the Ragu:
2 carrots
1 red onion
several cloves of garlic
2-3 stalks of celery, with the leaves on (you want maximum celery flavor)
fresh rosemary
fresh parsley (a handful)
a can of pealed tomatoes
.35 kg cinghiale
red wine (a cup or so)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Like ragu itself, which is a pretty broad term, how you make it can change quite a bit.  My version would probably be improved by browning the meat separately first, but the cooking time required for the vegetables dictated that they needed to be started before I was done preparing the cinghiale.  The list of ingredients can fluctuate a certain amount too, based on the season and what you have available.  The key is getting an intense and complex set of flavors out of the odori.  Towards this end, I always try to include carrots (cut as finely as ones patience allows) and celery, especially the leaves, which have the most flavor. 

Chop up all of the vegetables and herbs and start sauteing in olive oil for your sofrito.  When they are starting to get soft turn up the heat slightly and add the meat and let it cook for a bit before adding the wine and tomatoes (turned into small bits with your method of preference).  Cook over low heat for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally and adding water if it gets too dry. 

Pici is, in my opinion, one of the essential pastas for the minimally equipped kitchen.  It's a siennese eggless pasta hand formed to resemble the thickest spaghetti you've ever seen.  Which is great, because it means you don't really need any equipment.  We made this a whole lot before our pasta maker came into our lives using just an empty wine bottle and a knife.

For each cup flour (feeds 2) add a tablespoon of olive oil and a 1/4 cup of water.  Kneed it together until the dough is smooth but not at all sticky.  Cover and let it rest for 10 min. roll it out and cut into square-ish ribbons, then hand roll into long "snakes" around 1/8th of and inch thick.  Dust with flour and let the pasta dry for 15 min. or more.

Bring a pot of water to boil and add salt, then the pici.  Cook for about 2 min. and drain the pasta, taking 1/2 a cup of pasta water to add to the ragu along with the pici.  Cook everything together for another couple of min. to let the flavors integrate and serve with grated pecorino romano (or parmigian) and crushed black pepper.