Pancetta

Pancetta is pork belly, the same cut as bacon, dry-cured with salt, black peppercorns and spices, then air-dried. It is not smoked and it is not sugar-cured, which changes both how it tastes and how it behaves in a pan.

It comes in two forms. Pancetta tesa stays flat, is cured as a slab and is the cooking version: cut into cubes or thick strips and rendered in a pan. Pancetta arrotolata is trimmed, rolled tightly, sewn into a casing and hand-tied, then aged; it is sliced paper-thin and eaten raw like any other salume, with the spiral of lean and fat as its signature.

There is also pancetta coppata, with a length of neck muscle rolled into the centre, and lightly smoked versions from the Alpine valleys, the one Italian exception to the no-smoke rule.

The protected northern version is Pancetta Piacentina DOP, granted in 1996: rolled, aged at least four months, weighing four to eight kilos. Calabria has its own DOP for a flat, chilli-rubbed pancetta, which is excellent and a completely different animal.

Clean, salty, sweetly porky, and crucially without the smoke and sugar that define American bacon. What you taste is pork fat and salt, with a background of black pepper, nutmeg, clove and cinnamon from the cure.

Rendered, it turns golden and gently nutty. It gives off a lot of clear fat and the meat goes tender rather than brittle, so it never quite reaches bacon's shatter-crisp texture: pancetta softens and browns rather than snapping.

Rolled pancetta eaten raw is different again: silky, mild, faintly sweet, closer to a very fatty prosciutto than to anything cooked. The spice notes come forward much more strongly when it is not heated.

The practical upshot is that pancetta disappears into a dish where bacon announces itself. In a ragù or a soffritto it adds depth without telling you what it is.

For cooking, buy pancetta tesa, the flat kind, in a slab and cut it yourself into cubes or strips about half a centimetre thick. Pre-cubed supermarket packs are usually wet-cured, release water rather than fat, and steam instead of browning.

Start it in a cold, dry pan with no added oil and bring it up over medium-low heat. The fat needs six to eight minutes to render properly. That rendered fat is the foundation of the dish: never pour it off.

Pancetta is the base of most Italian soffritti alongside onion, carrot and celery, and it belongs in ragù bolognese, pasta e fagioli, lentil and bean soups, and braised greens. Rolled pancetta, sliced thin, is eaten raw with bread and cheese, or wrapped around roasts, fish fillets and vegetables, where it bastes the food as it melts.

For carbonara and amatriciana, guanciale is the traditional choice and pancetta is the fallback. If pancetta is what you have, use unsmoked, cut it thicker than feels right, and render it gently, because it holds less fat than guanciale and the sauce comes out leaner.

One thing pancetta will not do is get bacon-crisp. If a recipe needs shattering crunch, pancetta is the wrong tool.

A vacuum sealed slab keeps three to four months in the coldest part of the fridge; the date printed on the pack is the one to go by. Once opened or cut, wrap the piece in butcher paper, waxed paper or a clean cloth and use it within three or four weeks. Never put cling film directly against the surface: it traps moisture and the fat sweats. Thin slices of the rolled type have far more surface exposed to air and change fastest, within two or three days.

An open piece changes predictably: the lean dries and firms, the cut face darkens, and the fat oxidises from chalk white towards yellow with a flat, tallowy smell. A surface bloom can appear on aged pieces; what it is and what it means is a question for the producer or the shop that sold it. Cubes freeze well, and that is the practical way to keep pancetta at home: cut a whole slab, freeze it in 100 gram portions, and take out only what the recipe needs. Six months in the freezer, straight into the pan from frozen.

The confusion abroad is almost always bacon. Pancetta is cured and air dried, not smoked, and it is sold as a flat slab (tesa) or a tight rolled log (arrotolata) rather than in rashers. A cut face shows clean alternating bands of red lean and chalk white fat; an amber or yellow tint in the fat means it has oxidised in air and light. On a rolled piece the spiral should be closed on itself, with no air pockets between the turns. The smell is sweet and spiced, nutmeg and clove over cured meat, with no smoke.

Read the label the way an Italian deli would: pork belly, salt, pepper and spices is the tradition, while dextrose, maple and smoke flavouring are bacon conventions. For the protected version look for the words Pancetta Piacentina DOP and a producer number. Guanciale is a different cut, jowl, showing one solid block of fat with a thin lean seam; lardo is back fat with no lean at all. Price separates the tiers honestly: domestic pancetta at $10 to $18 per pound is the everyday grade, imported DOP $22 to $35.

In the US, most supermarkets carry pancetta both as cubed packets and as a rolled log at the deli counter, where Boar's Head, Citterio and Volpi are the common names, at $10 to $18 per pound. Trader Joe's cubed pancetta is a solid weeknight option. For better versions, La Quercia in Iowa, Fra' Mani in Berkeley and Creminelli make excellent domestic pancetta, and Eataly, Gustiamo and Formaggio Kitchen import Pancetta Piacentina DOP at $22 to $35 per pound.

In the UK, Waitrose, Ocado, Tesco Finest and Sainsbury's all stock cubed and sliced pancetta at £2 to £5 per 100g. Natoora, Vallebona and Ham & Cheese Co. import the Italian DOP versions at £25 to £40 per kilo. UK shoppers have an advantage here: unsmoked streaky bacon is a supermarket staple and makes a genuinely good substitute.

Buy a slab rather than cubes wherever you can. Pre-cut pancetta dries at the edges and is often brine-cured, which you notice immediately in the pan: it leaks water and refuses to brown. On the label, look for a short ingredient list and no dextrose or syrups; those are bacon conventions, not Italian ones.

Piacenza and its valleys (Val d'Arda, Val Tidone, Val Nure) are the place to go. Castell'Arquato and Ziano Piacentino are the easiest bases, with delis working directly with the Consorzio Salumi DOP Piacentini producers and osterie serving the local trio of coppa, pancetta and salame with torta fritta, the puffed fried dough that goes with all three.

In Piacenza itself, the shops in the old centre and the trattorie around Piazza Cavalli are the reference points, and pisarei e fasö, small dumplings with beans and pancetta, is the dish to order.

In Lombardia, the crotti around Chiavenna in Valtellina serve the local lightly smoked pancetta alongside pizzoccheri and bresaola. Crotti are natural cellars ventilated by constant air currents through the rock, a completely different ageing environment, and worth the detour.

In Milan, the historic counters at the Mercato Comunale in Piazza Wagner and the delis around Porta Romana handle both the Piacentina and the Alpine styles well.