Cubanos

I recently met a couple of Cuban musicians. They were telling me how much they miss Cubano sandwiches and that they sometimes fly to Miami just to get a Cubano fix. I offered to make them some and deliver them to a festival they were playing at the following week. I've been known to make a mean Cubano. In case you have never had one, they are terrific. They are the Blog Techs favorite sandwich. The are sold all over Miami and are a favorite food for people leaving bars late at night.



First you have to marinate the meat. Grate a large onion into a bowl.


Add a lot of minced garlic. I used the frozen cubes and added about 15 of them.


Add a lot of freshly cracked black pepper.


You need a pork shoulder roast with the bone in. this is about 5 pounds.


Sit it fat side up and pierce it all over with a sharp knife.


Add the juice of 3 oranges and three lemons and a cup of oil to the marinate. Add several tablespoons of dried oregano.


Place the roast in a large zip lock bag and pour in the marinate.


Place the bag in the bowl, put it in the fridge and turn it several times a day. I marinated the roast for 2 days.


When you are ready to cook the roast, slide it out of the bag into the bowl along with the marinate.


Remove the roast and brush any marinate sticking to it into the bowl.


Brown the roast in some hot oil in a heavy dutch oven.


Make sure you get a crunchy brown crust on all sides.


When the roast is browned, add the marinate to the dutch oven. Cook the roast in a 275 degree oven for 4 hours. The meat should be falling off the bone and falling apart.



Refrigerate the roast to cool. Then remove it and slice it into thin slices.


Also, chill the marinate in a bowl in the refrigerator. After it has chilled, remove the fat that forms on the top.


Mix the sliced pork with the marinate.


Cubanos can be made on baguettes but you really should make Cuban pane d'aqua.


You can google recipes for the bread. They are formed into baguettes and spread with egg whites.


Slash the tops and bake them in an oven with a pan of boiling water on the bottom. You can see the steam it produces.


This is great bread to use all sorts of ways.


Warm the pork and marinate while you assemble the ingredients you will need. Use baby Swiss cheese slices, yellow mustard and a good thinly sliced ham. And you must use dill pickle slices.


The cheese melts as the Cubanos cook and glue the sandwiches together. First, spread each side of the bread with some yellow mustard. Next put a layer of cheese on each side of a split baguette. Mound some of the pork with it's juice. Fold on some slices of ham. Top with pickles. I forgot to take picks of the cooking process. You cover the sandwiches with garlic butter and place them in a heavy skillet. Place something very heavy on top. Some people wrap bricks in tin foil to weight the sandwiches down. They should end up being 1/3 the thickness of the original sandwich. I used a heavy frying pan with a heavy pot which I sat on top of the sandwiches.


I wrapped them in parchment for delivery.


These are crunchy on the outside with warm layers of yumminess within.


There is nothing quite like a good Cubano!

Comments

Anonymous said…
I should just have a yum button to hit everytime I come here.Wish my computer had a smelling button,, maybe your blog tech could work on that,,these look so good,,that was really nice of you to make them for your friends,
brokenteepee said…
They do look delicious. There is something about food that takes more than one day to cook....
I would kill for one of those right now. Fabulous! I wonder how many hundreds of Cubanos I've eaten in my life.
Anonymous said…
I´ve never heard of these before but they must taste like heaven :-) I´ll have to try this now when summer comes :-)

Have a great day!
Christer.
Chowz Creations said…
Never thought to put meat in a bag, forcing the marinate to surround it. Great idea!! Oh yes, sandwiches look wonderful too. =)
I bet those Cuban musicians are STILL singing your praises! I've never heard of Cubanos but I'd love to try one someday. They look and sound delicious!
Excellent. This is so different from the cuban sandwiches I love.

The Columbia Restaurant in Tampa is where I learned to love the cuban sandwich and garbanzo bean soup.

Thanks for sharing.

xoxo to Teddy Red Fluffs
Suzie said…
I've never heard of these before, but they look fantastically good!! I'm sure that your new friends were SO impressed, that they're hoping that they'll never have to travel to Miami for a Cubano fix again!
SharleneT said…
I hope you realize that you may well have begun a JOB for those musicians! These look sooooo yummy. Definitely going to do the pork shoulder marinade thing. Love the whole sound of it! Thanks for making me hungry. I'm sure the Blog Tech was fed, as well. He sure looks like he's starving to death... uh-hunh.