Kosher substitute for Pancetta?

Husband loves a torta I make with Pancetta - but we're trying to start eating kosher. Any suggestions for a flavorful replacement?

Thanks and shalom!

[carbonaraboy]

Depending on your application, I would use bresaola since it is cured in a similar fashion. It's very lean so you don't have to render it, just add to your dish.

--Rich

[JimmyT]

This is the first discussion that shows up on Google for "Pancetta replacement," so I think it would be useful to post to the fuller discussion here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/585553

Goose fat would probably be as good as a sub for the fat aspect as you're likely to find. For the meatiness aspect, maybe a relatively mild, un-fatty turkey ham?

You could take the skin (with a bit of meat stuck to it) off a chicken thigh, render the fat and use the cracklings in the finished dish. Don't quite know how your recipe uses the pancetta, but chicken skin will give you the rich fattiness you want. Agreed - pancetta isn't smoked, so it's not the smokiness you're looking to replace - it's something else altogether.

How about beef bacon?

I believe that smoked turkey thigh is usually the standard replacement. It provides a similar nuttiness to dishes.

But regular pancetta isn't smoked.

Most recipes that include pancetta as an ingredient say an appropriate substitute would be good quality bacon if you can't find pancetta, I would guess an appropriate kosher substitute would be using turkey bacon. I wouldn't use smoked turkey meat because you need the fat that pancetta/bacon has and using just meat probably wouldn't do it. Maybe even using chunks of duck proscuitto might work too.

>Most recipes that include pancetta as an ingredient say
>an appropriate substitute would be good quality bacon if
>you can't find pancetta

Haven't done a census of recipes but you're probably right. However, many that suggest bacon as a substitute also recommend blanching it to remove some of the smokey taste, something I wouldn't want to try with turkey "bacon."

The duck prosciutto idea is brilliant, by the way, especially if you could find some with a bit of fat attached.

Good point, that's just what my friend's mom says she always uses, and she seemed pretty sure of herself.. but that could just be her personality...