Cuban Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Up next for National Grilled Cheese month is a simple grilled cheese take on the Cuban sandwich where instead of using a Cuban bun and cooking it pressed style we use bread and butter and cook it grilled style. The Cuban sandwich consists of a really tasty combo of roast pork (preferably Cuban roast pork), ham, pickle, mustard and plenty of melted swiss cheese. Although this is just a minor variation on the Cuban sandwich, it is a good one and one worthy of making an appearance National Grilled Cheese month; I mean you really can't go wrong taking an already amazing sandwich and wrapping it in toasted buttery bread.

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Corned Beef Cuban Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I recently made some lechon asado (Cuban roast pork) and I used it to make some tasty Cuban style sandwiches. A reader recently suggested trying a St Patrick's Day take on the Cuban sandwich replacing the ham with corned beef which sounded really good! I am no stranger to mixing things up and one of my favourite takes on a Cuban sandwich has to be my Thanksgiving Cuban sandwich where the roast pork is replaced with roast turkey and cranberry sauce is thrown into the mix, so I needed little convincing to try the St Patrick's day version! As luck would have it I still had some roast pork in the freezer and I had just made some corned beef so I was all set to go. Normally a Cuban sandwich is made in a Cuban bun and cooked pressed but I decided to make this sandwich more grilled cheese style in golden brown crispy butter-y bread that is grilled to perfection. I have to say that the corned beef makes for an excellent substitution for the ham in a Cuban sandwich and I will definitely be making these again! Next time I think I might throw some russian or thousand island dressing and try to work in some sauerkraut and make it more of a reuben Cuban sandwich!

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Cuban Black Beans and Rice (Moros y Cristianos)

On the weekend, when I made the Cuban roast pork, lechon asado, I served it with some Cuban style black beans and rice make it a complete meal. Many different cultures seem to have their own version of a beans and rice dish and moros y cristianos, black beans and rice, is the Cuban version. This dish is really easy to make and it generally consists of onions, peppers, garlic and oregano that is simmered with the black beans, infusing the dish with some amazing aromas. Everything is simmered low and slow to let the flavours develop and it is cooked until the beans get tender and start to break apart making for one tasty and creamy dish. Dried black beans are commonly used for this dish but this version is a quicker one that uses canned beans making it a little easier to make, which is especially nice when making a large meal. These Cuban style black beans are tasty and satisfying enough to make for a complete meal all by themselves or they can be served as a side dish as I did when I served them with the lechon asado. This bean and rice recipe is definitely one to keep on hand for when looking for a light, healthy and tasty dish!

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Cuban Sandwich

At the beginning of the week I had plenty of freshly minted leftover Cuban roast pork (lechon asado) and of course the first thing that I thought to use it in was a sandwich, a Cuban sandwich in particular. The Cuban sandwich, popularized in Florida, consists of roast pork, ham, swiss cheese, yellow mustard and pickles and it is generally 'pressed' when grilled. As luck planning would have it, I also just happened to also have some roast ham on hand so I was all set to make some Cuban sandwiches! These sandwiches are really easy to make, you pretty much just assemble the sandwich and grill it in a panini press. (I don't have a panini press so I just used a grill pan and 'pressed' down on the sandwich with a mixing bowl.) Despite being so simple, the Cuban sandwich is packed full of flavour and all of the flavours work so well together! The Cuban sandwich works particularly well with the lechon asado that has been marinated in the sour orange and garlic mojo and if you have any extra mojo on hand, throw some into the sandwich or dip your sandwich into it for even more kick! If you are using lechon asado for your roast pork and if you had any crackling, add some to the sandwich for a tasty crunchy texture! These sandwiches certainly are a great way to enjoy some of the leftover Cuban roast pork (lechon asado)!

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Cuban Roast Pork (Lechon Asado)

One project that I have been wanting to try for a while was making a Cuban style roast pork and with a recent sale it was the right time to make it! Cuban style roast pork, aka lechon asado, is traditionally made by roasting a whole pig until cooked and the skin is nice and crispy but at home it is much easier to make a smaller cut of pork, say the shoulder or picnic cut and roast it in the oven. Lechon asado is made in many different spanish speaking countries and what makes this one Cuban is the Cuban style mojo sauce marinade. The mojo sauce is made with sour orange juice and plenty or garlic along with some oregano and cumin and it is used to both marinate the pork before roasting and also at the table for drizzling or dipping.

Since this recipe is an in home adaptation of roasting a whole pig, there are several ways in which you could cook the pork. Cooking the pork in a slow cooker would be the easiest solution but since the picnic cut of the pork shoulder comes with the skin on I wanted to roast it in the oven to get some nice and crispy crackling. The first step was to make the mojo sauce and most recipes called for pureeing the sauce in a blender until smooth but since I do not have a blender I went with my food processor and ended up with a slightly chunkier version, though I kind of liked those nice chunks of garlic and it certainly tasted pretty amazing anyways. Next up was marinating the meat in the mojo over night which was pretty easy but it did create some difficulties with my desire to get some crispy crackling as wet skin does not crackle well. In the end I decided to pull the pork out of the marinade and early, pat the skin dry and let it dry out for an hour before scoring it the skin and rubbing in some salt. You can serve your Cuban style roast pork in one of two ways, sliced or pulled and the only really difference is how long you cook it. To get the crackling I started out by roasting the pork at a high temperature until the skin got nice and crispy and then I lowered the temperature to continue roasting until the pork was cooked. In the end I was able to get the crackling that I was after but it was more of a blackend crackling which was still addictively tasty but I did need to cover the pork with foil part way through cooking to prevent it from burning.

Once the pork was done roasting I pulled it out of the oven and while I let it rest and cool down before pulling it I caramelized onions in some of the mixture of mojo and juices from the bottom of the pan to mix into the pulled pork. When I marinated the pork I made sure to reserve some of the mojo to both mix into the pull pork and to serve with the meal for even more mojo-y goodness! I have to say that this Cuban style roast pork with crackling was an amazingly successful and fabulously tasty project that is definitely worth making for your family Sunday night dinner!

(Of course you all know that I did not make a roast pork just for the initial roast pork dinner! Keep an eye out for what I use the Cuban style roast pork in next!)

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