Olla de la Plana

Olla de la Plana is Castellón's winter pot, from the flat coastal comarcas of La Plana, and it is cocina de cuchara, spoon food: white beans, chard, cardoon, calabaza, turnip, potato, and just enough pork bone to remember the larder. It is not a cocido with vegetables tucked around the meat. Here the calabaza and the legumes lead, and the pork keeps quiet.

The method that decides it is order. The beans cook first at a low tremble until almost tender; then the cardoon, stems, roots, potato, and calabaza go in; the chard leaves wait until the end. Add everything at once and you get a pot where every vegetable has surrendered. Add it in order and each one keeps its place while the pumpkin softens enough to give the broth body.

If you can't find cardoon where you are, use the thick white stems of chard and add a few artichoke hearts near the end. It won't have the same faint bitter edge, but it will still point toward Castellón instead of becoming just bean soup. Use dried white beans if you can, soaked overnight. Cannellini or great northern beans will do. No hace falta haber pisado España. If the squash is sweet and the oil is good, siempre sale, si lo sigues.

The note in my Margin for this olla is plain: don't let the pork take the pot. A little bone seasons. Sausages drag it somewhere else.