Learning

Two new discoveries for me:
- Using my pancetta and artichokes preserved in oil as a pizza topping (just a bit of cheese and tomato sauce underneath). A great combination of salt, oil and sharp from the artichoke brining, plus the giving texture of the artichoke against the chewy resistance of pancetta cut into batons. Went well with a Rockfords Moppa Springs grenache mataro shiraz blend. A sangiovese or barbera would have been a good match too.
- Hazelnuts in pesto instead of pinenuts. Dictated by the necessity of having run out of pine nuts and needing to make pesto to go with a pane di casa loaf I'd just baked. Usually, I have little time for pesto variants (especially commercial pre-mades that substitute many of the key elements that make fresh, traditional pesto so good). But this time, using good hazels with the skins on, the pesto turned out lighter and crunchier than usual. The skins gave the pesto a length of flavour (and tannin grip) that made it an excellent accompaniment to the fresh bread. Surprisingly good with a sparkling pinot noir from Adelaide Hills fruit (done as a white bubbles with the barest touch of bronze), but would have also been good with a prosecco or pinot grigio.

Pancetta #3 - Amatriciana & pinot noir

Thinking about a good pasta dish to match with pinot noir? Recent experiments with the home-made pancetta included a good match between some young pinot noir (2008 Wickham's Road) and spaghetti all'Amatriciana.

While cured and dried pig cheek (guanciale) is my ideal meat for combining with tomato and chilli for making the Amatriciana sauce, home cured pancetta is a good variation. The sauce can be stripped back to olive oil, cooked-out pancetta, tomato and chilli. Or done slowly starting off with onion and pancetta in a little oil, braising over low heat for 20 minutes or so, before adding garlic, chilli, a little white wine, tomato and a touch of sugar. Cook out slowly until the sauce 'cracks' and oil starts to separate. Check for seasoning and serve tossed through pasta. Bucatini is traditional, but I also like this sauce with penne or spaghetti.

As much as barbera-based wines can be good fits for sauces using tomato, I find young, bright and brisk pinot noir can also have a fruit and acid profile that matches well with pasta and Amatriciana sauce.

Pancetta #2

My toe in the smallgoods water has been pancetta. Unsmoked bacon or petit sale, really. The Gallic dry cure used salt, sugar, bay leaves, peppercorns and juniper berries. As Jane Grigson notes in her excellent book on the history of French charcuterie and pork cookery, much Roman preserving of meat followed Gallic examples, flavourings and techniques. Which helps explain why I found myself using a French cure recommended by an Englishman (Hugh F-W) to make an Italian product.

Anyway, the first test of the dry cured pork belly was the bacon sarnie. Salty, crispy, porky bacon unsmoked goodness with soft white bread, a bit of butter, some lettuce and sauce. Test passed. Second test: bacon and eggs, also passed. Third and fourth tests still to come: pasta and then soaked and simmered with peas, petit sale style. Think I like this smallgoods thing.

Making pancetta

Making Italian smallgoods is a new thing for me, so I'm starting out at the easy end with making some pancetta. Unsmoked bacon with a dry salt cure plus some aromatics, basically.

A tad over a kilo of pork belly, skin on, has gone into a glass dish. Juniper berry, black peppercorns and fresh bayleaves have been ground with salt. Mixed with more salt and soft brown sugar, the dry cure mix is rubbed into the meat once a day. Each night, I'll drain off the liquid and rub another handful of cure into the pork.

Around day 5, there'll be bacon. Or pancetta (pre-drying). Or something.