Caldo Gallego

Ingredients

• 300 g dried white beans, soaked overnight
• 300 g salted pork shoulder (lacón), desalted
• 200 g pork ribs or salted pork bone
• 1 smoked Galician chorizo, about 100 g
• 30 g unto (cured pork fat) or 2 tbsp lard
• 600 g grelos (turnip greens) or spring greens, thick stems removed
• 500 g floury potatoes, peeled and broken into chunks
• 2.5 litres water
• Salt

Before you cook

• Soak the dried beans in plenty of cold water overnight.
• Soak the salted pork and the pork bone in cold water for twenty-four hours, changing the water three times.
• Wash the greens well and tear out the thick stems, keeping only the leaves and tender stalks.
• Peel the potatoes and break them into chunks by digging the knife in and twisting, so the ragged edges release starch.

Steps

1. Drain the soaked beans and put them into a large pot with the desalted pork shoulder, the pork bone and two and a half litres of cold water.
2. Bring the pot to the boil and skim off the grey foam that rises in the first five minutes.
3. Add the unto or lard, lower the heat to a bare simmer and cover the pot.
4. Cook gently for ninety minutes, until the beans are tender and the pork pulls apart easily.
5. Lift out the pork shoulder and the bone, strip the meat from them, and return the meat to the pot in bite-sized pieces.
6. Drop the whole chorizo into the pot and simmer for fifteen minutes so its paprika fat colours the broth.
7. Blanch the greens in a separate pan of boiling water for thirty seconds to take off their bitterness, then drain them.
8. Add the blanched greens and the potato chunks to the pot and simmer uncovered for thirty minutes.
9. Crush a few pieces of potato against the side of the pot with a spoon so the broth thickens slightly.
10. Lift out the chorizo, slice it into rounds and return it to the pot.
11. Taste the broth and add salt carefully, remembering how much the cured pork has already given.
12. Let the caldo stand off the heat for ten minutes before ladling it into deep bowls.