Thursday, August 12, 2010

Cuban Sandwich

In Florida, probably the most popular sandwich is the Cuban. Traditionally a Cuban consists of ham, roasted pork, Swiss cheese, dill pickles, mustard, and of course Cuban bread (if you're from Tampa you'll include salami). There are of course variations, one of the most popular is substituting chicken for the ham. Here is my variation made mostly from left overs. First you'll need a good Cuban bread. Can't find one? Make your own. You need these.
In a bread machine combine 1 and 1/8 cups of water, 3 cups of bread flour, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt, 2 teaspoons of brown sugar and 2 teaspoons of yeast. Select the dough cycle for a 1 and 1/2 pound loaf. When it has finished kneading remove to a lightly floured board.
Work the dough out lengthwise
and cut into two pieces.
Form into two loaves and place on a cookie sheet or baking stone lightly covered in corn meal.
Let rise, uncovered for ten minutes.
Cut several slits or one long one in the top of the bread.
Cover the top of the bread with an egg wash consisting of one egg mixed with a tablespoon of water.
To a baking pan add one cup of hot water and place on the bottom rack of your oven.
Place the loaves in the cold oven on the next rack up and cook for 25 minutes at 400 degrees. It's stomp down amazing but it works. Remove from the oven
 and let cool on wire racks.
After the bread has cooled or you got some bread from the store it's time to start the sandwiches. We're going to use left overs from earlier meals.
The chicken breasts were marinated in Asiago Cheese and Garlic Italian Dressing and cooked on the grill. The pork tenderloin (http://godahale.blogspot.com/2010/06/pork-tenderloin-carolina-style-with.html) was grilled as well. First spread some mustard on both sides of the sandwich.
Next comes the pork.
Now the Swiss cheese.
Top with chicken slices.
Don't forget the dill pickles. Place 'em over the chicken.
Now preheat a panini press to high. If you don't have one of these
don't worry. Just heat a skillet and use a large, heavy pan to be the press. You'll have to turn the sandwiches over to toast both sides. Now butter both sides of the sandwiches if you are using the press(we used Olivio) and place in the press.
Close the lid and gradually add pressure.
Put some muscle in it Alice!
After a few minutes they're done.
Delicious!
Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. This was the best Cuban I've ever tasted. You rocked this one babe!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, that looks so good. My kind of meal.

    ReplyDelete