Week 14: Sandwiches - Cubanos

Everybody loves sandwiches. They're quick and easy to make. They are often a full balanced meal by themselves. For this week, though, I didn't want to just throw some meat and cheese between two pieces of bread and call it done. I wanted to make a sandwich that was a special treat. So Cubanos it is.

Whenever my wife and  go to New York City, we try to try as many different types of food as possible, since you can get anything and everything in that crazy town. One of our more positive memories was stopping in a small Cuban restaurant near the Museum of Natural History. Their Cuban sandwiches were perfect. I wanted to try to replicate that. But to make a Cuban sandwich, you need to plan ahead. I don't know about you, but I don't typically have leftover roast pork in my fridge. So on Sunday, we made Cuban roasted pork, Lechon Asado, with some rice and black beans.

 Now to assemble:

 First, I threw in my two cast iron skillets into a 350 degree oven for ten minutes.

Gather the necessary ingredients

Nothing fancy, just regular yellow mustard

Next add on thinly sliced lechon asado

Add on a layer of ham

Next provolone cheese

Sliced pickles. Don't be stingy.

Take your skillets out of the oven. Since they are cast iron, they will hold all the heat that you need, so there is no need to turn on the stovetop. Just add in your sandwiches, place the second skillet on top and weigh it down, so that the sandwiches are pressed. Alternatively, if you have a sandwich press, you could just use that.

They turned out pretty good. I don't know why, but I kept thinking that it needed salt. But I will tell you that this was well worth the effort. So yummy and oh so much food. We were stuffed afterwards!

BONUS SANDWICH

While we are talking about sandwiches, I am going to share one of my family's dark secrets. It is one of those secret family meals that would make the normal person  think you are insane. I am sure that you have something like this in your family. Either that or my family is made up of lunatics. Here it is:

Don't knock it until you try it. My wife did, but after she tried it, well let's just say that now I can't make just one of these.