Cured pig jowl. Or to be more accurate, “the lower fleshy part of the animal’s cheek and neck”. It’s not a term that usually makes most people salivate but guanciale is considered a necessity in Italian cookery and is also the subject of a fierce culinary rivalry with its close but actually, still quite distant relative pancetta.
Guanciale is made using the pig’s cheek and jowl. It is generally rubbed and seasoned in salt, pepper, sage, thyme, rosemary and sometimes garlic, and then dried and aged for at least three months. The result is a strong-flavoured meat with a texture that softens in the pan in contrast to pancetta, which has a tendency to crisp up. Most of the fat renders away and gives a deep and distinctive flavour to classic Italian pasta dishes such as Spaghetti alla Carbonara, the tomatoey Sugo alla Amatriciana and the Roman speciality Pasta alla Gricia.
Pancetta in comparison, is made with pork belly that’s seasoned and flavoured with salt, black or red pepper and ingredients such as chilli, juniper and garlic. The curing process is usually quicker and can last anything from three weeks to three months. Pancetta can be unsmoked or affumicata and produced either in rolls (typical of Northern Italy) or in wafer-thin slices (more common in the South). Its flavour is more delicate and therefore, more versatile than guanciale but there is really no contest when the stronger flavour of the former is required for particular recipes.
I first knowingly experienced a dish made with guanciale in August 2017 at Pasta Remoli, a fantastic, wallet-friendly Italian neighbourhood restaurant tucked away on a side street in Finsbury Park, North London (now happily expanded to seven locations in the capital). I had decided to shake things up a bit by moving out of my comfortable, yet small flat on Stockwell Road, Brixton and taking on a complete renovation project up on Brixton Hill. For the next five months whilst the new flat was uninhabitable, I lived transiently in a combination of run-down student halls, cheap, seedy hotels and finally a Bailey caravan on the site at Crystal Palace Park. I had spent two weeks living in the relatively plush University of Arts London accommodation block Sketch House, hence my chance discovery of the delights of Pasta Remoli.
I ate at Pasta Remoli a number of times over that fortnight and on one occasion tried the chef’s recommendation, Pasta alla Gricia. It was deliciously salty and the guanciale provided a robust umami taste. The Head Chef and Owner Simone Remoli even popped out of the kitchen to see how I’d enjoyed it. I was an instant convert.
I took an Italian friend who was typically picky with food and sceptical about the trattoria-style restaurants in London to Pasta Remoli a year later and it got their seal of approval too. Highly recommended to any Londoners reading this blog!
Guanciale alongside a Pugliese burrata. 
Spaghetti alla Carbonara.
In Italy, guanciale is available in most of the bigger supermarkets, as well as the butchers (La Macelleria). In the UK, more specialist delis may stock it, although unsmoked bacon cubes can also be used as an alternative.
Shopping in Bari, guanciale costs as little as €3 for 300g. Its flavour is pungent so best to use it sparingly – you’ll need a sharp knife or even scissors too as the outer casing can be tough. I’ve cooked Spaghetti alla Carbonara and Pasta alla Gricia with it and the liquid fat wonderfully coats the pasta and gives the dishes a burst of flavour, as well as a glistening, yellow-ish, hue. The only downside is that my flat smelled like the kitchen of a greasy spoon (for the non-UK readers, the informal name for a traditional British breakfast café) for the next 24 hours – you’ve been warned!
