Lacón con Grelos

The great Galician winter pot: salt-cured ham hock boiled long and slow with turnip greens, chorizo, and waxy potatoes

Origin: Galicia, Spain

From the journey of Turnip.

Lacón con grelos is the great winter and carnival dish of Galicia, the cool, green, rain-washed north-west corner of Spain, and it turns on the meeting of two things the region holds dear: the lacón, the cured and salted foreleg of the pig, and the grelos, the leaves and flowering shoots of the turnip, gathered through the cold months from every Galician kitchen garden. The salted ham is soaked to draw out its salt, then boiled long and gently with chorizo, waxy potatoes, and great bundles of the grelos, until the meat is meltingly tender and the greens have softened into the rich, pork-scented broth. The dish belongs above all to the days of carnival, the Entroido, when it is the centrepiece of the Galician feast, but it is eaten through the whole turnip-green season as the most representative meal of the region. The grelos are its soul: faintly bitter, full of iron, they cut the fatty richness of the cured pork exactly as a good green should, and the Galicians prize them so highly that the first tender shoots of the year are a delicacy in their own right. It is honest, hearty, deeply seasonal country food, a whole pot of pork, green, and root set down in the middle of the table.

Ingredients

  • 1.2 kg lacón (salt-cured pork shoulder/foreleg), or a smoked gammon hock
  • 2 Galician chorizo sausages (or other cooking chorizo)
  • 600 g grelos (turnip greens/tops), or use cime di rapa or sprouting broccoli tops, tough stems removed
  • 8 small waxy potatoes, peeled
  • 1 bay leaf
  • salt, only if needed (the lacón is salty)
  • good olive oil, to serve

Method

  1. Soak the lacón in plenty of cold water for 24 hours, changing the water two or three times, to draw out the cure's salt. (Omit or shorten for a milder smoked gammon hock.)
  2. Drain the lacón, put it in a large pot, cover well with fresh cold water, add the bay leaf, and bring to the boil. Skim off the foam, then reduce to a gentle simmer and cook, partly covered, for about 2 hours, until the meat is tender.
  3. Add the whole chorizo sausages and the potatoes and simmer for 20 minutes more.
  4. Meanwhile, blanch the grelos in a separate pot of boiling water for 5 minutes and drain; this tames their bitterness.
  5. Add the blanched grelos to the main pot and simmer everything together for a final 15–20 minutes, until the greens are soft and infused with the broth and the potatoes are cooked through. Taste the broth and add salt only if needed.
  6. Lift everything out and carve the lacón. Serve the sliced meat, chorizo, potatoes, and grelos on a warm platter, moistened with a little of the broth and drizzled with good olive oil. Serve the broth alongside or as a first course.

Notes

Grelos are the leaves and immature flowering shoots of the turnip; sprouting broccoli tops or cime di rapa are the closest substitutes outside Galicia, and even ordinary turnip tops work well. The cooking broth is precious: serve it as a soup, or use it as the base for a caldo gallego. Lacón is the traditional cut, but a smoked gammon or ham hock gives an excellent and easier result. The dish is the centrepiece of the Galician Entroido (carnival).

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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