Organ Recital: Guanciale From Dickson Farmstand Meats

Guanciale is the cured jowl of the hog, a fatty cut that begs to be used as the fat component of such famous Central Italian recipes as spaghetti all'Amatriciana. It has a funky, lardy flavor that nicely underpins a rich tomato sauce, adding glue to the recipe as well...

Gabe Ross, of Chelsea Market's Dickson Farmstand Meats, has been curing his own guanciale lately. It comes in a thick white roll tied up with string, featuring nuggets of meat inside. "It's not cured as long as Salumeria Biellese's," he noted. "So keep it in the refrigerator."

I decided to cop a pound and give it a road test. I'd bought a passel of late-season brussels sprouts at Union Square, smaller and more delicate than their earlier-season counterparts, along with a few fingerling potatoes, and decided to combine the two in a vegetable medley. The guanciale would provide the perfect lubricant.

I cut the guanciale into tiny fingers and tossed it in a non-stick frypan. Gabe's product seemed to have a higher smoke point than the more extensively cured product--and a consequently milder flavor. Cutting the potatoes in rounds, and cutting the larger brussels sprouts in half, I dumped the vegetable into the pan soon after the guanciale started to melt, then put a lid on the pan, so that the potatoes and sprouts steamed and sauteed simulataneously. With a little sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, the results proved spectacular, as you can see from the picture below.

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