Pancetta is often called Italian bacon. That's a true enough description, but unlike American bacon, which is most often smoked, pancetta is unsmoked pork belly that is cured in salt and spices such as nutmeg, pepper and fennel. It's then dried for a few months.
Outside of Italy, pancetta most often comes rolled (rotolata) so that the fat and muscle spiral around each other. Pancetta can also be made as a slab (stesa) so that the fat is mostly on one side. Rolled pancetta is normally cut into circular paper-thin slices before being fried, while slab pancetta is usually chopped or diced before being added to a dish.
Pancetta adds a distinctive pork flavor to pasta and other dishes, without infusing into them bacon's smokiness. In the U.S., it's a common substitute for guanciale, which is the cured pork cheek that is the traditional base for many classic pastas, like carbonara or all'amatriciana.
Recipe: Browse Cookthink's pancetta recipes.
Reference: Browse Cookthink's bacon recipes.
Reference: How to prep pancetta (Cookthink)
Reference: What is guanciale? (Cookthink)
What does it mean for bacon to render its fat?
What does it mean for bacon to render its fat?
Bacon renders -- or gives up -- its fat when cooked over low to medium heat. Cooking the bacon melts the fat, which separates from the connective tissue and meat, and becomes what is otherwise known as bacon fat.
Rendering is also used to describe what happens when butter is clarified -- meaning heated until its milk solids separate and can be removed -- as well as the process of turning suet into tallow and pork fat into lard.
Recipe: Braised Mustard Greens With Bacon And Shallots (Cookthink)
Reference: Do I need to blanch bacon before using it in a recipe? (Cookthink)
Lardons is the French term for small matchstick-cut pieces of bacon or larding fat cut from the belly of pork. They are used to add moisture to lean meats while roasting, or in stews, fricassees, fried dishes, and more.
Lardons are often blanched before using to remove excess salt and fat. A main ingredients of Quiche Lorraine, hot fried lardons added to a frisée salad along with a poached egg make a French bistro classic.
Do I need to blanch bacon before using it in a recipe?
Do I need to blanch bacon before using it in a recipe?
It depends on how you want the finished dish to taste.
If you want a salty, smoky flavor in the finished dish, then you shouldn't blanch the bacon. (Do be careful though if the recipe calls for additional salt.) If you want the pork flavor of the bacon to come through but are concerned that its smokiness will overwhelm the other flavors, you should blanch the bacon before using it in the recipe.
To blanch bacon, put it in a saucepan and cover it (by 3 inches) with cold water. Bring the water to a boil and then reduce the heat to simmer for 5 minutes. Drain the pan, rinse the bacon in cold water and then pat it dry with paper towel.
Reference: What does it mean to blanch something? (Cookthink)
Reference: What does it mean for bacon to render its fat? (Cookthink)
Recipe: Avocado With Bacon Vinaigrette (Cookthink)
Recipe: Chicken Madeira And Macaroni Soup (hogwash)
Recipe: Pork Paté With Port And Hazelnuts (Traveler's Lunchbox)
Bacon is the cured and/or smoked side, belly or back of a pig.
American bacon—called streaky bacon by our British friends—is cut from a side of fatty pig belly. It's normally sold in slices ("rashers" across the pond). Canadian bacon (English back bacon) is made from the leaner loin, located in the back.
While bacon usually implies "pork," the word can be used to describe cuts (and composite cuts) from other animals, such as turkey, as well as "veggie bacon" made with soy.
How to make bacon wrapped scallops
How to make bacon wrapped scallops
Scallops wrapped in bacon are absolutely delicious, and are sure to be a hit at any get-together. Just watch this instructional video by Handmade TV to learn how to make them.
What exactly is thick-cut bacon?
What exactly is thick-cut bacon?
Sliced American bacon is cut from a side of cured and/or smoked fatty pig belly and sold in packages without its rind.
It comes in three sizes: Thin-sliced bacon has about 35 strips per pound; regular-sliced bacon has 16-20; and thick-cut has just 12-16 strips per pound.
what you should know
Often called "Italian bacon," pancetta is different from its American counterpart in one important way. Bacon is usually smoked (and only sometimes cured), while pancetta is pork belly that is cured and spiced but not smoked.
roll vs. slab Pancetta can be prepared in two ways: as a roll (rotolata), in which the fat and muscle spiral around each other; and as a slab (stesa), in which the fat is almost entirely on one side.
make and prep your own Rolled pancetta is most often sliced paper thin. With slab pancetta, you often get a slightly thicker slice you can then dice. (If you want to cure, roll and age your own pork belly, check out Chow's step-by-step guide on making pancetta.)
if you lack guanciale Pancetta is often used in place of guanciale, which is the less commonly available cured pork cheek called for in traditional pasta dishes like carbonara and all'amatriciana.
if you lack pancetta If you can't find pancetta, you can use bacon in its place. Do you need to blanch the bacon before using it? Depends on how you want the finished dish to taste.
what you need
It's more focused on lardons than pancetta, but Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery is our favorite of Jane Grigson's contributions to the world of food reference.
More recently, author and blogger Michael Ruhlman has updated the world of charcuterie with the appropriately titled Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.
In Pig Perfect, Peter Kaminsky goes on a pilgrimage in search of the world's best cuts of pork. He mostly succeeds.
what you do
Tender, bitter and salty, this recipe for lima beans and radicchio with pancetta is Italianesque comfort food.
Not as comforting, though, as this fettuccine with pancetta, egg and parmesan, a variation of classic pasta carbonara.
Another classic winter dish: Italian cabbage and white bean soup.
This hearty lentil soup with chorizo and potatoes combines the mild spiciness of the Spanish sausage with the porky richness of pancetta.
Even though it's out of season, we've seen some beautiful asparagus lately. Food miles be damned: we've been eating a lot of this sautéed asparagus with pancetta and garlic.
Charcuterie is the French term for prepared pork meat (and offal) products as well as the delis that sell them. The goal of charcuterie is to use up scraps that would otherwise go to waste and to extend the life of pork meat, and the artisanal and industrial methods for doing so have been developed since the 15th century. As the French are fond of saying, "Tout est bon dans le cochon."
Charcuterie includes cured meat, fresh or smoked sausage, pâté, andouille sausage, black pudding, rillettes, hams, headcheese and other ready-to-eat pork products that are made using a variety of methods, from poaching to smoking to salt-curing. In addition to France, countries such as Italy and Germany also have strong pork traditions.
Coq au vin is the name of a classic old French stew that used to mean rooster, or cock, cooked in wine. Old birds who'd been kept around for years needed to be braised slowly to soften up their meat, and the sauce for the dish was thickened with the cock's blood.
These days, we use chicken when making a coq au vin, and a roux to thicken the sauce.
The dish also contains ingredients including lardons, onions, mushrooms, carrots, chicken stock, brandy, garlic and seasonings in addition to the wine. Coq au vin is typically served with pasta, steamed potatoes or latkes.
