This recipe comes from Luigina, the “historic” Viallino cook who has now retired; she inherited it from her grandmother, Ersilia. The meat, which must be hung at length, should then be marinated for a long time loose its strong gamey flavour. After being sautéed with olive oil and the traditional “aromas” (rosemary, sage, bay leaf, juniper berries...), it is cooked with tomatoes and... a “touch” of plain chocolate. This was Grandma Ersilia’s secret: the slightly bitter taste of the chocolate heightens the sweet, gamey flavour of the wild boar and makes the sauce unbeatable...

The wild boar meat, carefully cleaned and washed, must be marinated for at least 12 hours (up to a maximum of 24 hours) in a bowl with the red wine, the chopped onion, celery and carrot, the crushed clove of garlic, the sprigs of parsley and juniper berries. The marinade should cove the meat, if the quantity of liquid is insufficient, increase it by adding more wine. 

For the sauce: when it has marinated long enough, strain the meat, place it on a chopping board, use a knife to cut it into pieces about 1 cm in size and set aside. Take the pieces of carrot, celery and onion from the marinade, pat them dry with kitchen paper, chop finely and transfer into a heavy-bottomed pan in which you have heated the olive oil with the clove of garlic. Cook the chopped vegetables over a low heat for about 20 minutes. Add the meat, the rosemary, bay leaves and sage tied together, the juniper berries and peppercorns; after cooking for a few minutes over a lively heat, pour in the wine, season with salt and turn the heat down. When the wine has evaporated completely, add the peeled tomatoes squashed with a fork, and simmer for about 1½ hours with the lid on, stirring from time to time. At the end of the cooking time, when the meat is nice and tender, turn off the heat and finish the sauce by adding a little grated plain chocolate; stir once more and set aside. 

Now prepare the cannelloni: cook the lasagna sheets in plenty of boiling, salted water, slowly putting them into the pan vertically one by one (and only a few at a time). After roughly 8 minutes, use a perforated spoon to remove them from the water. Immediately dip the lasagne into cold water, then strain them again; Now carefully lay them out to dry on a cotton tea towel, one beside the other. In the meanwhile, wash and clean the Swiss chard, cut it into pieces and put them into a large frying pan on the stove, with the lid on, to cook for a few minutes. After draining off the liquid, put the pieces of chard onto a chopping board and chop coarsely with a knife, then transfer into a bowl; mix with the ricotta, grated pecorino and salt until you have a homogeneous mixture, which you will use to fill the cannelloni. Spread a few spoonfuls of the wild boar sauce over the bottom of an oven dish and then prepare the cannelloni. Place a generous spoonful of filling in the centre of each lasagna sheet and roll them up to form cannelloni. As each one is ready, arrange them – one beside the other – in the dish. Cover with the remaining sauce, sprinkle with grated pecorino cheese and bake in a preheated oven, at 200 °C, for 15 minutes, until a nice golden crust has formed on the surface. Before serving, leave your cannelloni to rest for about minutes.