Guanciale - Finally ready

After 2 months in the curing chamber, starting at 54 deg. F and 75% RH and dropping to 54 F and 65% RH after the 1st month, the guanciale is finally ready. It has a nice firmness and nice aroma.


It's lost about 17% of its weight. Such a low weight loss is to be expected for pieces that are largely fat like guanciale and pancetta. The majority of the water in meat is stored in the muscle, and a small amount in the fat, so on pieces that are mostly fat well...there just isn't much water to lose!
Either way, it had a nice firm feel to it. Probably about as firm as a tennis ball if i had to compare it to something, maybe even a little firmer.

This started off as 1/2 of a face of a Large Black pig from Caw Caw Creek. I've previously stated my preference for pancetta over guanciale....boy was I wrong. I might have to take that comment back after this latest product.

Here it is in all it's glory coming out of the curing chamber. It smells herby and delicious, but not really as strong as you might expect.
It really doesn't look that much different than the picture before it went into the chamber!
Just a little darker really.

Hey look! I can do those artsy, slightly overexposed closeups that other blogs do :) But we all know you're not reading for my pretty pictures, and normally I wouldn't dedicate too much time to it, but this time it was like a beautiful model posing for a camera...it was hard NOT to take beautiful photos. (Is it odd that I compare a cured meat made from pig throat to a model? I don't think so)

This one isn't quite as up-close as the last pic, but it's just too beautiful to not post it. You can see how the guanciale is really mostly fat, with a thin streak of meat in it. I'm sure the breed and DEFINITELY the way it's raised has something to do with that.

Guanciale has a strange textured fat. It's silky and smooth feeling, but when biting it it has a slight "crunch" to it, almost like a beef tendon which isn't fully cooked. I sliced it nice and thin on my slicer because of this, and it was a great choice.

This cured meat is normally eaten cooked in other dishes, but i couldn't help sneak a taste of a slice (note slice missing!). It's amazing. Slicing it thin alleviated the texture issue, making it feel and chew like a slice of pancetta. It's really rich and the salt is perfect this time. The spices are there but it tastes mostly of delicious delicious pig. That was my goal; given the quality of the meat i didn't want to overdo the spicing. I succeeded.


Pasta alla Gricia. This is how the guanciale ended up the 1st night. It's a very traditional Roman dish, sometimes called Amatriciana bianca. It's only oil, black pepper, guanciale and Pecorino Romano. The cheese and the fat from the guanciale, together with some of the pasta cooking water combine to make a creamy, smooth velvety sauce.

1/2 of the guanciale is in the fridge ready to be devoured and the other half was vacuum packed and frozen.

This has to be one of my most successful cured meats so far. It's really amazing. It's perfectly balanced and the flavor is outstanding. No off flavors at all. I have to think a great majority of the success is due to the pork I used.