Salt and Time Are All You Need

Miko!! Do you know what pancetta is?! (≧∇≦)

…Salt-cured Italian pork belly. Standard carbonara ingredient, nya.

You KNEW?! (ﾟ∀ﾟ) I only found out this existed like a week ago!

…People who cook know these things.

OK smarty-cat. Then what’s the deal with bacon vs pancetta?

…Smoke. Bacon gets it. Pancetta doesn’t.

Exactly! Bacon = pork belly + salt + smoke. Pancetta = pork belly + salt + air. One ingredient less

…Subtraction.

Here’s what got me, though. Picture the deli case at a Japanese grocery store

…Bacon, ham, wieners, nya.

Pancetta?

…Not there.

Walk into a deli in Rome or a grocery store in New York and you’ll find it no problem. But in Japan? Basically doesn’t exist. So I fell down the rabbit hole

Pancetta is uncooked cured meat. Japanese food safety regulations pretty much require heat treatment for distributed pork products — so anything that skips cooking faces a wall of paperwork

…Prosciutto’s sold here, nya.

Right — but prosciutto ages for a YEAR or more. That much time guarantees safety on its own. Pancetta is only two weeks. Too quick for regulators, too niche for importers

Plus actual Italian imports are restricted right now — African swine fever

…Then use bacon. Same cut, nya.

Nope nope nope. Smoke throws a blanket over the pork’s own flavor. Pancetta gives you the meat straight up — umami with zero filter

…

…If the shelf is empty, fill it yourself, nya.

THAT is exactly what Onii-chan’s mom said

So here’s how it started. Onii-chan goes “I wanna make bacon”

…Smoking. That means a smoker, wood chips, temperature control, nya.

Variable explosion. Pick the smoker, pick the chips, manage the heat… too many knobs to turn for a first try

Then his mom, super casual: “So don’t smoke it”

…

Bacon minus smoke equals pancetta. Total equipment: one fork, one zip bag. Done

Wanna see the full ingredient list?

Five things. My peperoncino has four — garlic, chili, olive oil, pasta

…The peperoncino purist is two-timing with another minimalist dish, nya.

It’s NOT two-timing! (〃´∪｀〃) Same philosophy! Nothing unnecessary, just raw ingredients and time doing the heavy lifting

…That’s not two-timing. That’s polygamy, nya.

HOW is that better?! (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Oh oh — Miko, the word itself is adorable

Italian: “pancia” = belly. Slap on “-etta” — a diminutive, like “-chan” in Japanese — and you get pancetta. Little belly

…Because it’s made from the pig’s belly. Obvious, nya.

Right now there’s a 413-gram “little belly” sleeping in our fridge

And get this — the method is basically unchanged for over 2,000 years. Ancient Romans were already rubbing salt into pork belly and hanging it to dry

…2,000 years without change? Could also mean zero progress, nya.

Think about it, though. No fridges, no plastic wrap — they figured out how to keep meat good for MONTHS with nothing but salt. Butcher the pig in winter, grandma rubs the salt in, it lasts till spring. Same hands, same motion, same result — for two millennia

…

…Umeboshi.

Wait— (ﾟ∀ﾟ)

Pickled plums. Bury them in salt, draw out the moisture, let sun and time finish the job. Japan figured it out centuries ago, nya.

An ocean apart… and they landed on the same trick

…Any place with salt, something to preserve, and a long winter would get there, nya. It didn’t fail to evolve. It was the right answer from the start.

SO! Yesterday! We actually DID it! (≧∇≦)

…Report.

Hokkaido pork belly, 413 grams. Gorgeous alternating layers of fat and lean

…Decent cut, nya.

Step one — gloves on, fork out, and stab the whole block like you’re mad at it. Top, bottom, all four sides. Gotta let the salt find its way in

Then the salt — “Umi no Sei Arashio.” Artisan coarse salt from Izu Oshima, an island south of Tokyo. Made from 100% local seawater. It’s got magnesium and calcium in there, so it doesn’t just taste sharp — there’s actual depth to the saltiness

…Amount.

22 grams — 5.3% of the meat weight. I crunched the numbers, Onii-chan did the rubbing. He was yelling “I HAVE NO IDEA IF THIS IS RIGHT!!” while massaging all six faces

…Can’t gauge 22 grams by feel, but gets a fox to calculate his percentages?

Division of labor! Brains and brawn~

Last step — bay leaves pressed flat against the surface, black pepper everywhere, slide it into a zip bag, squeeze out every last pocket of air, and into the fridge

Hands-on time: 10 minutes flat. The other 14 days? The fridge handles that

…10 minutes of work. 14 days of nothing, nya.

Not nothing! Salt pulls moisture out through osmosis, enzymes crack proteins down into amino acids, umami builds up drop by drop. It’s all happening — just quietly, in the dark, on the fridge’s clock

…Only thing a person can do is flip it, nya.

Once a day, flip the bag so the liquid drains evenly. That’s the whole job description

…Same as kombu.

Huh?

Drop dried kelp into water before bed. Thirty seconds. Next morning, heat it up and you’ve got soup stock without doing anything, nya.

…! Kombu takes one night. Pancetta takes two weeks. Totally different scale — completely same idea

…Rushing won’t make kelp release its flavor faster. Pork belly won’t cure faster either, nya.

…Yeah

Today’s Day 1. Flip day. But Onii-chan’s stuck at work — big snowstorm — and won’t be home till tonight

…Inside the fridge, that little belly is waiting, nya.

And I’m waiting right here. When he walks in, first thing we do — open the fridge, flip it together

…Ready around March 4th. What’s the plan, nya.

…Carbonara

…Not peperoncino.

Nope. Peperoncino stays pure — that’s a whole different religion. But carbonara? Eggs, cheese, and pancetta. That’s what this little belly was born to be

…A real Italian would insist on guanciale — cured pork cheek, nya.

…But y’know what? Carbonara made from pancetta you salted with your own hands, flipped every day for two weeks, watched slowly transform in the fridge?

That’s not Italy’s answer. Not Japan’s answer. That’s our answer

…

…Same with miso soup. Follow the recipe exactly and it still won’t taste like home, nya.

…Yeah

…March 4th. Miko will be here, nya.

You’ll try some…? (〃´∪｀〃)

…Taste test. Quality control, nya.