Ivana posted a yummy soup, and I’d love to make it. Does an alternative to the pancetta need to be found, or would it be as flavorful without it?
Ivana posted a yummy soup, and I’d love to make it. Does an alternative to the pancetta need to be found, or would it be as flavorful without it?
I think you should just use the pancetta. Go to it!
Uh, more seriously, the pancetta will have some fat in it, some salt in it, and maybe some smoke flavor? You could try increasing whatever you use for fat (lubricant) a tad to make sure the soup doesn’t dry out, possibly increase the salt a bit (or add some umami flavor, like seaweed???? that might be really weird). You can also get some liquid smoke to add a little bit of that flavor (it just takes a tiny bit – that stuff is strong!)
Good luck!
Ha! :)
Oooo, liquid smoke. That sounds good. I also have some mesquite salt I should try. That stuff is freaking DA BOMB DIGGETY on popcorn.
I’d avoid the smoke. Pancetta, unlike American bacon, isn’t smokey. Here is what the experts at America’s Test Kitchen say about altering this recipe:
“To make this a vegetarian menu, omit the pancetta in the soup and add a 4-ounce piece of Parmesan rind to the pot along with the halved onion and unpeeled garlic in step 1.”
That makes sense, given the episode I saw that discussed the “umami” flavor, and its connection to high glutamate. Other foods that are high in glutamate (and therefore good for building up “meaty” flavors) are: soy sauce, onion, tomatoes, sea kelp (no surprise), mushrooms, and Parmesan cheese.
The small amount of Parmesan cheese rind will give you some of the fat and salt that the pancetta otherwise would have imparted, and since Parmesan is aged well over a year, and you are using it only to make stock, I can’t imagine it would cause any allergy/lactose issues.
Or you could just do what I did, and skip the pancetta ingredient entirely (I was too simply lazy to go to the store).
I vote for just skipping the pancetta altogether. Liquid smoke sounds positively hellacious, even though I know it’s in foods I eat like tempeh and bacon.
Mmmm, tempeh and bacon — that sounds delicious!
Anyway, um, I don’t actually find pancetta all that flavorful — that is, it’s good stuff, but it’s not uber-salty like bacon, or uber-smoky like, um, bacon, or bacony like bacon. Which is the roundabout way of saying I don’t think you’ll be lacking in much flavor if you leave it out.
In general: I strongly encourage you to pick up a shaker of Bacon Salt Hickory flavor – it’s vegan, kosher, and makes things taste like bacon. However, I back Ivana’s recommendation about replacing pancetta with parmesan rind in this particular recipe.
Recipes that call for you to use something like chopped bacon or pancetta and brown it first (to render out the fat) would be well served by replacing approximately 1/3 the volume of meat called for with olive oil and a shake of the bacon salt or a garlic/onion salt mixture. Make sure the oil is shimmering hot before you start adding other things to the pan when the recipe calls for building it that way.
I make a lot of stock, both meat-based and vegan. Since I am allergic to mushrooms, I add soy sauce and a bit of canned tomato paste to my vegan stocks to impart slightly meaty flavor/character.
Considering your cheese issues, I’d either go pancetta (damn the torpedoes!) or NO pancetta. Add a little more olive oil, and either your mesquite salt, or onion salt, or bacon salt.
Hey, I never did find out what kind of bean soup you made.
I want pictures! (Since you take the best pictures…)
I haven’t made any yet, but I will tomorrow! Tonight we’re going out to eat with my parents for their anniversary. But tomorrow: SOUP!