Lacón con Grelos

Lacón con grelos is Galician, a winter platter of salt-cured pork foreleg, grelos, chorizo, and potatoes cooked in the pork's own broth. The grelos, the tender leaves and flowering shoots of the turnip, make it this dish and not just another boiled pork supper. There is no sofrito and nothing is browned. The clean broth, pleasantly bitter greens, and rich cured meat are the point.

Desalting decides whether it works. Give a thick piece of lacón a full 24 hours in cold water, changing that water every eight hours. Rush this and the salt passes into the potatoes and greens until everything tastes of the same mistake. Once soaked, I keep the pot at a quiet simmer and add each ingredient according to the time it needs. Siempre sale, si lo sigues, it turns out if you follow it.

Far from Galicia, use an unsmoked salt-cured picnic shoulder or an unsmoked gammon hock. A smoked hock will still feed you well, but the smoke changes the dish. Broccoli rabe is the closest widely available substitute for grelos; it is sharper and stalkier, so blanch it briefly if the bitterness is fierce. No hace falta haber pisado España. The Margin beside my recipe says only this: change the soaking water, because the pot cannot undo salt you left in the meat.