Recently I’ve been finding ways to add pancetta to my cooking.  This flavorful, salty meat adds nice complexity to many dishes and you don’t need to use very much so it’s not too much of a financial splurge.  I’ve been buying the house-cured Pancetta at Star Provisions and I have not been disappointed.

Last week I made two meals with pancetta, the first was a Sunday Supper with roasted pork loin wrapped in pancetta, using a recipe I borrowed from Martha Stewart’s Cooking School.  Martha’s roasted pork loin is another great meal to serve when you have dinner guests because you can do all of the kitchen labor earlier and then you just have a lovely smelling kitchen when your guests arrive.

Ingredients:

• 1 boneless pork loin (about 2 pounds)
• coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1 T. finely chopped rosemary, plus one whole sprig
• olive oil
• Pancetta (I use about 10 thin slices (which was plenty), but Martha calls for 20 slices)

The first step in the cooking process involves searing the meat.  This gets a nice crust on the meat before you start roasting.  It keeps the juices in and adds to the texture.

Heat oven to 450.  Let pork rest at room temperature for one hour.  Pat pork dry with paper towels, then season lightly with salt and pepper.  (Don’t use too much because there will be plenty of salt in the pancetta.)  Heat a large cast iron skillet on medium high heat.  Add enough oil to barely coat the bottom of the pan and heat.  Sear pork until brown on all sides, turning with tongs as each side browns.  This takes about 8 minutes.  Remove pork from pan and let cool for about 15 minutes.

*A note on skillets: We bought our skillet about two years ago and it is definitely on my list of Top 5 pieces of kitchen equipment.  We use our skillet all the time and it’s so versatile.  I make chick pea flat bread, pork chops, steaks and many other dishes on the skillet.  It’s great for making an easy transfer from the stove top to the oven as seen in this recipe.

Next you’re going to wrap the pork in pancetta.  (Mmm…so good.)  Rub the pork with chopped rosemary.  Lay six pieces of kitchen twine on a clean surface, putting four in one direction (these should span the length of the pork because they will wrap crosswise) and two longer strings across those four.  (See photo below for guidance.)

On top of the twine arrange a little more than half of the pancetta, overlapping slights, in a rectangle.  Lay the pork on top of the pancetta and put the remaining pancetta slices on top, overlapping slightly.  Lay the rosemary sprig on top.  Tie the twine around the pork loin.

Return pork to skillet and place in oven.  Roast, basting with pan juices occasionally, until the meat is 138 degrees, for about 40-45 minutes.  Let rest for 10 minutes.  Cut off twine, carve and serve.

It’s really important to let the meat rest because it will continue to cook during that 10 minutes.  This is always hard for me because I can be a hungry and impatient cook!

All of my sides for last week’s Sunday Supper came from  produce purchased at The Local Farmstand.  With most of my meals now, I don’t even start to plan until I’ve seen what’s fresh and local that week.  Lucky for me, sweet potatoes are abundant as well as delicious mixed salad greens.  So I made Sara Fosters’ super easy mashed sweet potatoes (recipe to follow) and served a salad with mixed salad greens, micro greens, cherry tomatoes and dried cranberries.

The pancetta really adds a lot to the meal and makes the final product look prettier than simply serving roast pork.  I think it also holds in the flavors of the pork well too.  Stay tuned for more pancetta recipes!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 1:00 pm and is filed under recipe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.