Balsamic Glazed Pancetta with Jacket Potatoes

Balsamic glazed pancetta with jacket potatoes is a delicious and relatively simple dish to prepare. Here’s how to do it.

Ingredients

• 4 thick slices of pancetta
• 4 medium-sized potatoes
• Salt to taste
• Black pepper to taste
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar to taste
• Aromatic herbs of your choice (rosemary, thyme, bay leaves)

Preparation

1. Start by washing the potatoes thoroughly and pricking them several times with a fork. This will help the heat penetrate during cooking.
2. Prepare the potatoes “jacket” style, which simply means baking them in their skin. You can wrap them in aluminum foil if you prefer the skin to be softer, or leave them naked for a crispier skin.
3. Preheat the oven to 200 °C (390 °F) and cook the potatoes for about 1 hour or until they are soft to the touch.
4. In the meantime, preheat a pan over medium heat and cook the pancetta slices until they are crispy on the edges but still soft in the center. While cooking, reduce some balsamic vinegar in a saucepan until it becomes a thick syrup that you can brush onto the pancetta during the last minutes of cooking.
5. Once cooked, let the pancetta rest on a plate lined with paper towels to remove excess oil.
6. Serve the potatoes cut in half with a sprinkle of salt, pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, and dressed with the aromatic herbs. Add the pancetta slices in the center or next to the potatoes.

Jacket potatoes with balsamic glazed pancetta represent a union between Italian and international cuisines, with the distinctive flavor of balsamic vinegar enhancing the rustic taste of pancetta and potatoes.

Curiosity

Balsamic vinegar is a traditional Italian condiment, originating from the Emilia-Romagna region. Its production involves long periods of aging in wooden barrels that give the final product those sweet and complex notes that characterize it.