Preparation: 30 min Cooking: 150 min Servings: 4 Difficulty: medium
The History
I bigoli sono uno dei formati di pasta fresca più antichi del Veneto, nati nella cucina povera delle campagne ma presto adottati anche dalle tavole cittadine. La loro storia è legata all’invenzione del "bigolaro" a Padova nel XVII secolo, un torchio che permetteva di ottenere questi lunghi spaghettoni ruvidi e corposi. Ancora oggi, in molte sagre paesane, i bigoli vengono preparati secondo l’antica tecnica, come raccontano le tradizioni culinarie venete documentate da varie fonti storiche e gastronomiche locali. Il ragù di cinghiale, invece, affonda le sue radici nella cucina di caccia dell’Italia centrale e settentrionale, in particolare tra Toscana, Umbria ed Emilia-Romagna, ma è ormai entrato di diritto anche nel repertorio veneto. L’incontro fra bigoli e ragù di cinghiale rappresenta una sorta di alleanza tra la pasta simbolo del Veneto e i sapori di bosco tipici delle aree appenniniche. Per contestualizzare meglio la tradizione venatoria e l’uso del cinghiale in cucina, è interessante consultare la pagina dedicata al cinghiale nella cucina italiana, che racconta come questa carne abbia conquistato molte cucine regionali. Oggi i bigoli vengono conditi con una grande varietà di sughi: dall’iconico "bigoli in salsa" con acciughe e cipolla, ai ragù bianchi di cortile, fino alle versioni più robuste con selvaggina, perfette per i mesi freddi. Questa ricetta di bigoli ragù cinghiale celebra proprio il lato più intenso e conviviale della cucina veneta d’inverno.Ingredients
Ingredients for 4 people
- 320 g – Traditional bigoli all'uovo 250 g
- 600 g – Wild boar meat (shoulder or leg, in pieces)
- 1 – Medium carrot
- 1 – Stick of celery
- 1 – Medium golden onion
- 2 – Cloves of garlic
- 40 g – Diced pancetta tesa or guanciale (optional but recommended)
- 80 ml – Dry red wine
- 400 g – Tomato passata
- 1 tablespoon – Tomato purée
- 300 ml – Hot meat or vegetable stock
- 3 tablespoons – Extra Virgin Olive Oil Veneto del Grappa Filtered 500 ml
- 1 leaf – Bay
- 1 sprig – Rosemary
- 2 sprigs – Fresh thyme (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
- to taste – Fine salt
- to taste – Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon – Aged Balsamic Vinegar (to balance the sauce)
- to taste – Butter or oil for the final toss (optional)
- to taste – Grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana (optional)
Equipment
- Large wooden or plastic chopping board
- Well-sharpened chef's knife
- Large heavy-based pan (cast iron or heavy steel is better)
- Wooden spoon
- Large pot for cooking the pasta
- Sieve or colander
- Medium bowl for marinating or preparing the meat
- Ladle
- Kitchen tongs or a large fork for tossing the pasta
- Fine grater (if using cheese)
- Well-fitting lid for the pan
Method
Step 1: Preparing the vegetables and the meat
Start with the base of the ragù. On a chopping board, finely chop the carrot, celery and onion into an even mixture: this soffritto will give the sauce sweetness and depth. Lightly crush the garlic cloves, keeping the skin on if you prefer a more delicate aroma, or peel them for a bolder taste. Take the wild boar meat and, with the chef's knife, cut it into small cubes (about 1 cm) if it is not already minced: small pieces cook more evenly and give a more melting texture. Dry the meat well with kitchen paper to remove excess moisture, essential for good browning. Keep all the ingredients ready beside the hob: a good mise en place will make the next steps easier.
Step 2: Browning the meat and the soffritto
Heat the heavy-based pan over a medium heat and pour in 2 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil Veneto del Grappa Filtered 500 ml. If you are using pancetta or guanciale, add them first and let them brown until lightly crisp and giving up their aromatic fat. Raise the heat a little and add the wild boar meat, spreading it in a single layer to encourage browning: avoid moving it too much at first, let it colour. When the meat has taken a good brown tone on all sides and you have developed the typical roasting aromas, deglaze with the red wine, scraping the base with the wooden spoon to lift the caramelised bits. Let the alcohol evaporate for 2–3 minutes, until you no longer smell that sharp note.
Step 3: Building the cooking base
Lower the heat slightly and add the chopped carrot, celery and onion to the pan along with the garlic cloves. Pour in the remaining tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil Veneto del Grappa too, if needed, to coat the vegetables well. Let the soffritto soften gently for 8–10 minutes, stirring now and then: the aim is to make the vegetables translucent and soft without burning them. When everything is well combined and you have a fragrant base, add the tomato purée and let it toast for a couple of minutes: this stage deepens its flavour. Add the bay leaf, the rosemary sprig and the thyme; season with a first light pinch of salt and a grind of pepper.
Step 4: Slow-cooking the wild boar ragù
Pour the tomato passata into the pan and stir to spread the meat and vegetables evenly. Add part of the hot stock (about 200 ml), bring to a gentle boil, then turn the heat to its lowest and cover with a lid left slightly ajar. The ragù should simmer gently for at least 2 hours, better two and a half, stirring occasionally and checking that it does not dry out too much. If you notice the sauce thickening excessively, add the remaining hot stock a little at a time. The sign that the ragù is ready is meat that is soft and falls apart easily with a fork, and a sauce that is dense, glossy and well bound, of a deep red-brown colour. In the last 10 minutes, taste and adjust the salt and pepper, then add 1 teaspoon of aged balsamic vinegar to balance the whole with a sweet-sour note.
Step 5: Cooking the bigoli
When the wild boar ragù is almost ready, bring plenty of salted water to the boil in a large pot. Add a handful of coarse salt (about 10–12 g per litre of water) and, at a full boil, drop in the traditional bigoli all'uovo. Stir at once with a ladle or a fork so the pasta does not stick. Cook the bigoli following the packet instructions, but keeping a minute under the time for perfect al dente. The right texture is a pasta that offers slight resistance to the bite, ready to finish the last part of its cooking tossed with the ragù. Save a cup of the cooking water before draining: it will help you adjust the creaminess of the dish.
Step 6: Tossing the bigoli with the ragù
Drain the bigoli al dente and tip them straight into the pan with the piping hot wild boar ragù, removing the bay leaf and the woody herbs if necessary. Turn the heat to medium-low and start tossing the pasta gently with the sauce, helped by the tongs or a large fork, so that every bigolo is wrapped in the dressing. If the base is too dense, add a small ladle of cooking water to encourage the emulsion between the fat of the ragù and the starch of the pasta. If you like, you can add a small knob of butter or a thread of extra virgin olive oil Veneto del Grappa to make the dish even glossier and more enveloping. Toss for 1–2 minutes, until the bigoli are completely dressed in the sauce.
Step 7: Plating and finishing
For an elegant plating, wind a portion of bigoli onto the large fork or with the help of a ladle and set it in the centre of each warm flat plate. Finish with a few spoonfuls of wild boar ragù on top, making sure every portion has both meat and sauce. If you like, dust with a veil of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana, taking care not to cover the game aromas completely. Close with the thinnest thread of raw extra virgin olive oil Veneto del Grappa and a grind of black pepper for a final aromatic touch. Serve the bigoli with wild boar ragù at once, piping hot, ideally in rustic ceramic plates that echo the honest soul of this dish of place.
Wine and Beer Pairings
Two and a half hours of slow cooking concentrate everything: the game brings an iron, wild flavour, the tomato dries down, the base turns dense. It is the most demanding dish on the blog for a wine, and half measures are no use here — a medium-bodied red would be swallowed by the ragù. You need structure, tannin and a fruit ripe enough not to seem green beside the meat.
The Red We Recommend
Amarone della Valpolicella D.O.C.G. 2015 — With hoofed game, Amarone is the classic answer, and the reason is mechanical: the dried grapes give alcohol, glycerine and a fruit-in-spirit that stands up to the wild flavour instead of being erased by it, while the dense tannin dissolves the fat of the pancetta and of the base. The faintly bitter note that closes the sip — the one that gives the wine its name — cleans the palate before the next mouthful. Serve at 18 °C, in a large glass, opened an hour beforehand.
Want to know more about the grape? our guide to Amarone della Valpolicella
The Everyday Choice
Valpolicella Superiore D.O.C. Terra del Cereolo — A Superiore is a Valpolicella with a year more ageing and half a degree more alcohol: enough to stand up to the ragù, without the solemnity of the Amarone. Ripe cherry, sweet spice, a tannin that is present but gentle. It is the Sunday family bottle, the one that gets finished. Serve at 16–18 °C.
Want to know more about the grape? our guide to Valpolicella
Craft Beer as an Alternative
MonfeneraBock — doppio malto alle castagne — With game, chestnut is a pairing from the kitchen before it is one from the brewery: wild boar and chestnuts grow in the same wood and have always ended up in the same pan. This doppelbock puts them in the glass together with the toasted malt, with the full body needed to carry a long-cooked ragù and an underlying sweetness that tempers the iron of the meat. Serve at 10–12 °C.
Want to know more about the style? dark and doppelbock beers
The Extra Touch
To enrich your bigoli experience further, it is worth considering a dressing that plays in a different but equally tempting register: the Radicchio and Sausage Sauce. It is a ready sauce that joins the elegant bitterness of radicchio — a symbol of Veneto tradition — to the savoury fullness of sausage, creating a perfect balance between rusticity and creaminess. It is the ideal companion if you want to offer a small tasting of bigoli with two different sauces, perhaps serving a taste of bigoli with wild boar ragù and one with radicchio and sausage on the same plate.
You can use the Radicchio and Sausage Sauce very simply: while the bigoli cook, warm the sauce gently in a small pan with a thread of extra virgin olive oil del Grappa, loosening it if needed with a splash of cooking water to make it creamier. Once the pasta is drained, toss it straight with the dressing, exactly as you would with a home-made ragù: in a few minutes you will have a dish of real character, with the radicchio bringing its unmistakable bitter edge and the sausage giving structure and roundness.
This sauce is also perfect for building a complete bigoli menu: you can serve bigoli with wild boar ragù as the main dish and offer, as a first taste or as a second pasta course, bigoli with radicchio and sausage. That way you make the most of the versatility of the traditional bigoli all'uovo, offering your guests a journey through the flavours of the Veneto that takes in both the game and the finest vegetables of the region.
Variations on the Recipe
This recipe for bigoli with wild boar ragù lends itself to several seasonal and regional variations without betraying the original spirit of the dish. In autumn you can enrich the ragù with a few fresh porcini, or dried ones well soaked, which will add another layer of woodland aromas. In winter, for an even fuller version, you can replace part of the stock with a brown stock or with an extra glass of structured red wine. Instead of wild boar you can use beef or pork for a less gamey but equally enveloping ragù. If you have guests with particular needs, you can adapt the ingredients: for a lactose-free version it is enough to skip the butter in the final toss and the cheese at the end, relying on the extra virgin olive oil del Grappa alone for gloss. If you want a slightly lighter dish, reduce the pancetta and the added fats, relying on slow, attentive cooking to draw all the flavour from the meat anyway. To give your bigoli with wild boar ragù a modern touch, you can play with the plating: try making a clearly defined nest of pasta in the centre of the plate, decorated with a tuft of fresh herbs or a small brunoise of sautéed vegetables. A thread of aged balsamic vinegar dotted around the rim of the plate will give an interesting contrast to the eye and the palate. Serve the dish with toasted rustic bread, and if you want to impress, serve a mini portion of bigoli in individual bowls as a welcome taste too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I make the wild boar ragù in advance?
A: Yes — in fact the wild boar ragù is better made a day ahead. Keep it well covered in the fridge for up to 48 hours and warm it gently in the pan, adding a little stock or water if needed. Cook the bigoli only at the last moment and dress them with the piping hot ragù.
Q: How can I store this dish, and how long does it keep?
A: Dressed bigoli should be eaten straight away, but you can keep the ragù on its own in an airtight container in the fridge for 2–3 days. Alternatively, divide it into portions and freeze for 2–3 months. Thaw in the fridge and warm over a low heat before using it to dress fresh pasta.
Q: Can I use another kind of pasta instead of bigoli?
A: Yes, if you do not have bigoli you can use other long, rough pasta shapes, such as spaghetti alla chitarra or thick tagliatelle. The traditional bigoli all'uovo remain the best choice for holding the wild boar ragù, thanks to their full-bodied texture and porous surface.