Llom amb Col (Mallorcan Pork in Cabbage)

Llom amb col is Mallorcan, a winter dish of pork loin enclosed in cabbage leaves and braised with the island's botifarró and sobrassada, raisins, and pine nuts. It isn't simply pork cooked beside greens. Each slice becomes a parcel, browned until the cabbage catches a little colour, then settled into a rich sauce in a greixonera, the low clay casserole used in Mallorcan kitchens.

The sofrit, the slow onion and tomato base, decides the dish. Cook the onion until dark gold and soft, then let the tomato lose nearly all its water before the wine goes in. That patient cooking concentrates the sweetness and gives the sauce enough body to cling to the cabbage. Rush it and the parcels sit in thin tomato water. There, I've saved you the usual disappointment.

Far from Mallorca, use Savoy cabbage in place of the island's loose-leaf winter cabbage. Its leaves fold without tearing and become nearly as tender. If botifarró is impossible to find, morcilla de cebolla is the honest substitute, though it makes the sauce darker and a little softer. Sobrassada is harder to replace without changing the dish; mild fresh Spanish chorizo can stand in, but it will taste firmer, more garlicky, and less distinctly Mallorcan. No hace falta haber pisado España, but the closer you get to those sausages, the closer the pot gets to Mallorca.

Wrap firmly, brown seam-side first, and keep the braise at the barest tremble. The Margin beside this recipe says only: don't chase a parcel around the pot with a spoon. Baste it and leave it whole. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.