Cuban Sandwich

And so I'm so excited to be here in the kitchen with you today to really learn firsthand from a Cuban how to make the proper Cuban sandwich

Yes. Ham, pork, pickles, and Swiss cheese and mustard on Cuban bread

And Cuban bread, instead of using oil, they use lard. So it has that sort of soft center

You know, I knew I liked this girl. You are just beautiful

Thanks. And I love your heart ring. Y'all, look. She's got a heart, y'all

The girl has a heart. All right, so I know that a Cuban sandwich is made with pork, right

Yes, pork. And it's going to take a while. So you put me to work. Okay, so

You'll start by unwrapping the meat. Absolutely, and I'll start slicing. Maybe turning the slow cooker on high

Yeah, absolutely a good idea. You cooking on high? Now, I have to tell you, I love cooking, but I'm no chef

so I'm not going to, you know, cut all of the vegetables like the chef. Oh, well, listen, that's all right

You come into my kitchen with love in your heart for cooking

I love it. And you learned a lot from your mother and grandmother, correct? My mother, my grandmother, and my aunt

I would always be in the kitchen with them. Honey, that's the only requirement. I'm not schooled either

All right, so we could put that into the slow cooker with the orange juice, lime juice, salt, pepper, and cream cheese

Okay, so I don't have to season this first. No. This is a boneless Boston butt, y'all

and so you want me to teaspoon of salt and pepper teaspoon of cumin seed

a quarter of a cup lime juice look at the juice that just came out of that lime You might have some extra for a nice margarita Maybe so

I think that one lime is gonna maybe get us to our quarter of a cup

And then a cup of orange juice, too. Okay. And I'm gonna cut up with garlic, throw that in

Tell us, where did you, are you ready for the onions? Yeah, throw that in. Where did you grow up, Sabrina

Well, I was born in Miami like every other Cuban in America. And then we moved to New Jersey and then L.A

Are you first generation to America? First generation, and I brought my mom to Cuba

She hasn't been back in 47 years. 47 years. Now, all right, we're going to cover this and cook it for six hours

Eight. Eight hours. Okay, make sure that's good and sealed. And it, oh, it's already getting hot

Are you okay? It's a slow cooker, but it's already hot. But I think you're going to make pickles

I've never made pickles before. I am. I'm going to make you a pickle for these fabulous Cuban sandwiches

I'm measuring up one and a half cups of apple cider vinegar

And I'm going to bring that to a bowl along with a fourth of a cup of sugar

and we're going to pour this hot mixture over our pickles when I get them sliced

I'm going to add one teaspoon of black peppercorns. I going to add a bay leaf and I going to add a little celery seed You can certainly throw in kind of anything you want With these pickles you can kind of change the flavor around any way you want But I thought these would be nice flavors for that sandwich

Yum. I love a lot of pickles in a Cuban sandwich. Yes. And I'm using a wonderful pickling cucumber

You know, this is the kind of cucumbers I always use for my salad

I just love them versus a great big cucumber. cucumber. I've just found that these are so

flavorful and they're just pretty. They're pretty. Yes, they're pretty. Alright, now y'all, I have

brought this to a boil because we want to make sure that our sugar dissolves

We're going to let them marinate in this for just one hour. Okay

And then they're going to be ready to go on that beautiful Cuban sandwich

That's easy. Alright. So our yucas are boiling. Yeah. Well, you get started, baby, because I can't wait to taste that yucca

And look at this beautiful Cuban bread that we've got, y'all. It's gotta be Cuban bread

Yes. We've got a weight that we're gonna weight these down in on a black cast iron

My mom used to use a brick wrapped in aluminum foil. Wrapped in tin foil. Absolutely

All right, now, so this is our Swiss cheese. You know what? Why don't you let me fry those for you

How's that pork looking? This is looking great. I think I've got us enough done

Gosh, I do hope you like the pickles. Tell me what you think

Perfect I had no idea that making pickles was so easy Look at this You think I hungry

Oh! Look at that, John. That's heaven. Did we butter both sides of the bread

Oh, no, but I will. No, I was thinking about that. I always butter my bread, but I didn't know if you was interested

Oh. That's it. You're never gonna get rid of me. Oh, I can't believe you said

did you butter that bread, Paula? Our sandwich is plated up. Ooh

And you and I are gonna have a little Cuban chow down

Now, with a Cuban sandwich, you always have to cut it diagonally. Look how adorable, y'all. Oh

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm. And look, Sabrina, I have your whole cake to take them

Mmm. It's... Well, you have to. I have to. That's my evil twin sister making me do that

All right. Come over here, girlfriend. Look at that. How could you not love that the Cuban bread is..

It's a little walk. That's a good sandwich