Escudella Fresca Mallorquina

Escudella fresca Mallorquina belongs to Mallorca in spring, when the broad beans and peas are still sweet enough to bother shelling. It is a cocido, yes, but not a heavy Castilian one. This one is island spoon food, cocina de cuchara, made green and fresh with pods, artichokes, potato, cabbage, and the quiet strength of butifarro, blanquet, and camaiot.

The method that decides it is the order. Build a slow sofrito, the onion base, until it turns dark gold and sweet, then let the pork and broth give the pot its floor before the tender spring vegetables go in. Broad beans and peas are not firewood. Boil them hard and long and you lose the very thing the dish is named for: freshness.

If you are far from Mallorca, no hace falta haber pisado Espana. Use fresh fava beans if you can, frozen broad beans and peas if the market gives you no better, and find mild Spanish morcilla or Catalan botifarra negra in place of butifarro. A good cooked pork sausage can stand in for blanquet, and a small piece of cured pork shoulder can do the work of camaiot. It changes the accent, not the shape of the dish.

Make it when the pods look alive. Not tired, not leathery, not because a calendar said spring. In my Margin for this one I wrote only this: add the peas late. A small note, but it saves the pot. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.