should pancetta be this salty ?

Inspired by the recent carbonara thread, I bought some Applegate Farms pancetta at Whole Foods on Monday and gave it a go.

Overall the dish was good, but the pancetta was WAY saltier than I remember having in various other restaurant dishes. I do understand that it's a salt-cured product, but I swear, it almost made my lips pucker. No other salt was added other than to the pasta water.

I do think that I probably cooked it a too high a heat so maybe it didn't have time for it to leech out along w/ the rendered fat. Could this have been it ?

tem wrote:Inspired by the recent carbonara thread, I bought some Applegate Farms pancetta at Whole Foods on Monday and gave it a go.

Overall the dish was good, but the pancetta was WAY saltier than I remember having in various other restaurant dishes. I do understand that it's a salt-cured product, but I swear, it almost made my lips pucker. No other salt was added other than to the pasta water.

I do think that I probably cooked it a too high a heat so maybe it didn't have time for it to leech out along w/ the rendered fat. Could this have been it ?

From what you say, it does seem likely to me that the main problem was the quality of the pancetta in the first place. I don't know anything about Applegate Farms but from their name, it doesn't sound like pancetta has likely been a product that they have been producing for a long time too, so try some other brands. I've always been reasonably content with the ones I've gotten at local salumerie. Of course, you can and perhaps should try one of the few brands of guanciale (search: there's a long thread on this on LTH) that are available in town (e.g. Joseph's on Irving Park) or through the internet.

The pancetta should be cooked at low temperature in order that it sweat as much as possible. Use just a little olive oil to get it started and then 'subfry' it (Italian soffriggere) to extract the pork fat which is an essential flavour of the dish. I do like to get the pork bits crispy though, and once the fat is mostly rendered, I'll turn up the heat a little if necessary to crisp up the little bits.

As is the case with many classic pasta preparations, some of the ingredients are inherently somewhat salty. In this case, that is the case with the meat and the pecorino as well. By the way, what pecorino did you use? The quality of that is crucial for the quality of the dish as a whole.

Real carbonara, made in the simple, traditional way, is magnificent and, to my mind, cannot be improved upon through additions: only through the skill of the cook and the quality of the ingredients.

Antonius

Antonius wrote:
... lots of good info

Antonius

thanks ... I'll try it again soon and cook the stuff much more slowly. The recipe I used was from Mario Batali's book and is basically just pancetta, egg white/yolk, pepper, pasta and parm-reg.

I'll do a search for the usual other Italian grocery/suppliers like Bari and give another brand a try.

I too was bitten by the carbonara bug. I made Marcella Hazan's recipe last Friday, using a good quality thick cut bacon I got from a butcher in Eagle River, WI.

It's a little more complicated, but the white wine adds a nice touch.

http://www.detnews.com/2002/food/0211/12/c09-3595.htm

tem wrote:

Antonius wrote:
... lots of good info

Antonius

thanks ... I'll try it again soon and cook the stuff much more slowly. The recipe I used was from Mario Batali's book and is basically just pancetta, egg white/yolk, pepper, pasta and parm-reg.

I'll do a search for the usual other Italian grocery/suppliers like Bari and give another brand a try.

Tem,

Try Bari or Conte di Savoia or any of the places west, from Freddy's in Cicero to Riviera and Caputo's on Harlem up to Joseph's on Irving Park.

It sounds like Batali's recipe is pretty traditional but frankly, I don't understand why he uses Parmigiano. This is a quintessentially Roman dish and the cheese used in it traditionally is pecorino Romano. That's my preference not just by tradition but by flavour. But I guess he just prefers parmigiano, "the indisputed king...", as he says.

Lots of pecorino, lots of pepper.

The Hazan recipe quoted by kafein above looks like it would result in a very nice dish but it stretches the notion of what carbonara is beyond what many could accept. Garlic is generally not part of the dish that comes to mind for most people and in such quantities -- 4 cloves, even if discarded -- the inherent character of the dish is fundamentally transformed. Also, if one uses bacon, it should not be a smoked bacon, at least if one is aiming to produce something that's close to the traditional dish.

Nota bene: this is not criticism of Hazan's recipe as a recipe of tasty food or any sort of criticism whatsoever directed at kafein. Rather, I see this in a way as a terminological question. If one puts pineapple -- or even just onions -- on a pizza with mozzarella di bufala, tomatoes and basil, you can't call it a pizza Margherita anymore. The same thing applies for most of the regional traditional dishes. To my mind, as long as there is a strong tradition of doing the dish without garlic, one can't speak of the tradition having changed but rather of non-canonical versions which -- if the changes touch the actual core of the dish -- should not properly share the name of the still-living traditional version, at least not without being clearly qualified.

Again, spaghetti with bacon and eggs and garlic and parmesan cheese sounds good but then perhaps it deserves its own name. Of course, for most people, these matters are of little concern but some people -- such as myself -- who study the traditional regional cuisines, see these terminological matters from a different perspective. There was a somewhat similar and also lively discussion regarding barbecue recently which immediately reminded me of the issues surrounding some of the Italian dishes I've discussed on this board.

So then, to each his own, call it what you will, but as always, for enthusiasts of Italian cuisine, I think it's always good advice to try at least just once a maximally traditional version of the regional classics.

There's obviously nothing wrong with innovation in cooking, with personalising dishes; quite the opposite, those are good things... But there's also nothing wrong with trying to protect and foster appreciation of tradition. That too, as a famous native of Nutley would say, is a good thing.

Bon pro'.
Antonius

Here are links to 20 recipes for carbonara on Italian-language Web sites, every one listing aglio. I did not check out each one of the thousands of sites my search turned up, but this certainly seems to suggest that Marcella Hazan is far from alone among Italians in believing garlic part of the dish. (And the highly opinionated Hazan once famously commented, "The unbalanced use of garlic is the single greatest cause of failure in would-be Italian cooking.")

This is rather like debating whether or not peas are critical to chicken Vesuvio. Some recipes have garlic; some do not -- either way, it isn't central to the recipe. To speak of "non-canonical versions" implies there was a Church of Carbonara whose council officially declared garlic anathema, when it seems to be merely a matter of preference.

The first three sites detail the cuisine of Lazio, the region around Rome. (Rome is where most authorities agree carbonara originated, although its specific origins are disputed. One story suggests that it was created to use supplies of American eggs and bacon shipped to Italy during World War II; that's probably apocryphal -- the recipe likely predates the war, but may well have been popularized then, which would account for Italian recipes calling for smoked bacon.) The fourth link below is from Marcato, the makers of Atlas pasta machines.

Most of these recipes are essentially similar (sometimes identical), but I'll note that several specify pancetta affumicata and many of them call for a mixture of parmigiana and pecorino.

http://www.agriturismoitaly.it/cucina/lazio.htm

http://www.gianni.virtuale.org/ricette/lazio.html

http://entertainment.teleradiostereo.it ... /lazio.htm

http://www.marcato-omc.com/mod-recipes- ... id-1.phtml

http://www.emmeti.it/Cucina/Ricette/Spa ... ra.it.html

http://www.italiadonna.it/public/percor ... ric032.htm

http://www.ricettedi.it/primi/spaghetti ... bonara.htm

http://www.fotoexpo.net/utilita/Ricette ... -pasta.asp

http://web.tiscali.it/inviaggiobaby/hom ... bonara.htm

http://www.globalizzazione2000.it/carbonara.htm

http://cucina.casainrete.com/nav/ricett ... bonara.htm

http://www.divella.it/ricetta.asp?idric=33

http://members.tripod.com/~FrancoRossi/ ... ag006i.htm

http://eddyburg.it/article/articleview/2460/0/6/

http://www.villaggiomondiale.it/carbonara.htm

http://www.pastafabbri.it/it_doc/ricette/ric_carb.html

http://www.taorminaline.it/ricettepronte.asp?Id=23

http://ricette.fonzito.com/ricetta_00010850.html

http://www.cuoko.it/det.qws?codice=C0005PriP6652y

http://www.olionostrum.com/ricette.htm

Maybe not the right place to post this, but wondering if anyone knows of good pancetta to be found in or around Lincoln Square - I'll probably check out Provenance and Gene's Sausage, but not sure if either carries it. Maybe Whole Foods? Pastoral may be slightly farther than I wish to travel, but I'd assume they have it too.

I'd definitely try Provenance, they carry Smoking Goose products which I really like. I haven't tried their pancetta, but their duck bacon in sublime.

99% sure Provenance has it and 100% sure that WF does. Wish I'd known you needed--was just at Graziano's and theirs is awesome

boudreaulicious wrote:99% sure Provenance has it and 100% sure that WF does. Wish I'd known you needed--was just at Graziano's and theirs is awesome

Damn - yes, that's where I'd prefer it be from.

Ended up finding La Quercia pancetta at Provenance - pleased.