The Perfect Lunch

Y'all, I'm so excited about the beautiful young woman that's in the kitchen with me today

My friend Sabrina Soto is stopping by today to help me make a real Cuban feast

Perfect. Starting with a gigantic Cuban sandwich made with some of my quick pickles, y'all

You think I'm hungry? Ah! Then Sabrina teaches me how to make yucca fries a new favorite of mine

You bad little spitfire Cuban girl, you. Finally, we're finishing off with a banana cream parfait that's gonna get us moving on to a Cuban beat

This is Sabrina Soto

She is originally from Cuba, and you know, my husband loves Cuban food

Who doesn't? It's his desire to visit Cuba. 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

It's delicious. 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

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

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 cumin seeds

Okay, so I don't have to season this first. 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

We might have some extra for a nice margarita. Maybe so. I think that one lime is going to maybe get us to our quarter of a cup

And then a cup of orange juice, too. Okay. And I'm going to cut up a 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. Ouch! It's already getting hot

Are you okay? It's a slow cooker, but it's already hot. Now, I'm ready to make some of your yucca fries

All right, so this is a yucca root, not yucca. And that is a vegetable

It's a root vegetable. So you just have to peel it just like a potato. Yeah, yeah

And then boil it for about half an hour. 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'm going to add a bay leaf

And I'm 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. I've just found that these are so flavorful and they're just pretty

They're pretty. Yes they pretty So I just cutting these into big chunks and then we boil it for about half an hour Then take it out drain it cut it into fry pieces and we fry it

You're going to love it. With the mojo on top, it is delicious. All right, now what you talking about mojo

Mojo, it's like a garlic, sort of citrusy, delicious marinade. You can put it on chicken, but I like to pour it over the yucca fry

Oh, you do? Yeah. All I did in Cuba was eat. I gave eight pounds

Did you? Eight pounds and eight days. Oh, my gosh. Well, you, at least you could stand to gain

All right, now, y'all, I have brought this to a bowl 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. All right. So our yucas are boiling. Our butt is cooking

Our pickles are getting to be pickles. Yep. So now when we come back, we're going to start putting everything together

Don't miss Sabrina. She's precious. Coming up. Here, let's just have a little taste

We might not have enough ingredients left for our banana parfaits, y'all

And later, a perfect combination of my quick pickles and Sabrina's yucca fries will take this Cuban sandwich right over the edge

This is insane. Y'all, I'm in here in the kitchen with Sabrina Soto

She's sharing some of her heritage and some of her favorite family recipes with me

And now for Sabrina, I want to make you a chocolate banana parfait

So we are going to make the cake part of the parfait

Good. So if you'll start measuring up the dry ingredients, Sabrina, I need two cups of all-purpose flour

a fourth of a cup of unsweetened cocoa, a half a teaspoon of bacon powder

a half a teaspoon of bacon soda, and a half a teaspoon of salt

Okay, I'll take care of that. And while she's doing that, I'm going to come down here and mix together our wet ingredients

And I'm going to start with three sticks of butter. Starting off great, it is Sabrina

I have such a sweet tooth, so this I'm excited. Oh, dear you! It's really, it's gotten to be a problem

problem. So I'm going to blend my three sticks with two cups of sugar, and I'm going to add five

eggs. So I'm going to cream this. All right, now I'm going to add these eggs, and first I'm going

to break them in here one at the time, Sabrina, because I just want to make sure that each

egg is good. I know. I always get the shells. Don't want to ruin the whole batch

So you've never been to Cuba? I have never been to Cuba, but my husband is dying to go

You should go. I actually went straight from Miami. Is it easy to get in

It's some paperwork that you have to do. But now, there were many, many Americans that came straight from Miami in the same flight

with me that are going with humanitarian visas. You take this over, and then I'm just going to scrape around so we can get all that mixed up

And if you would just beat that until it's creamy, I'm going to come down here

and I'm going to add one and a half cups of buttermilk. All right, there's our buttermilk

And we're going to need one and a third cup of a chocolate sauce

I will drink that. Whatever's left in that bottle, I'll drink straight from there

Here, let's just have a little taste. That's heaven on earth. Delicious

So I will do the adding. If you'll do the beating, you always want to start with your dry ingredients and end with your dry ingredients

It makes for a creamier base. Okay. So there you go. Well, while you were in Cuba, I bet you took a lot of pictures, didn't you

I do. I have some, but you'll have to forgive me, because most of them, I have a mojito in my hand

Oh, really? I think that's where the eight pounds came from. I'm going to add our chocolate syrup

Make this really, really chocolatey. It's going to make two cakes, y'all

One for me. So we going to use one for the parfait and then we can put the other one in the freezer and have parfaits next week All right Or next month Or I just take it home Or you can take yes I can pack it up for you and you can go home and you can make parfaits for your family

All right, you would just spray those real, real good and divide up our batter between the two loaf pans

We're going to get those in the oven. We're going to bake them at 350 for an hour and five minutes

And while you're getting that done, I'm going to make the custard part of our parfaits

Do you need some help with anything? I don't think so. I mean, I'm going to make a mess, but

Now, I'm using an instant vanilla pudding. I'm using two of those, like, small packages of vanilla pudding

and I'm going to need three and a half cups of milk

It tastes good and it's not even cooked yet. If you want to get those in the oven

and I'm just going to cream an eight ounce package of cream cheese

with that vanilla pudding. So this is going to be the custard part

And I tell you what I'm going to do, just to keep you and I as clean as I can get us

if you would just help me kind of position that. That's nice

Yes, over this bowl. I don't mind getting dirty. I've got three and a half cups of milk

So I know this part can't be very exciting for y'all. We'll take a quick break, y'all

We'll meet you back here in the kitchen with Sabrina Soto. And we're going to put together

those Cuban sandwiches and these parfaits. So we'll see y'all back in a minute

Coming up, we're revesting our Cuban sandwich with our homemade quick pickles

Tell me what you think. Perfect. Then Sabrina's Yucca Fries gets my mouth to water

Wow, look at that. Sounds like a free try. Y'all, I'm in here with my little Cuban Spitfire Sabrina

I'm fixing to pull Sabrina's butt out of this slow cooker, and I'm going to shred it to pieces

She's going to get our yucca, yucca, yucca. I don't know why I want to say yucca, y'all

A lot of people do. Yucca-ducca. She's going to be frying up our yucca, and you're making a mojo sauce or something

Mojo sauce for untopled. Mojo sauce. So let's get going. Okay. Pull that out

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. Oh, my brother. Y'all. It's got to be Cuban bread

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

My mom used to use a brick. Yes. Wrapping aluminum foil. In tinfoil, absolutely

All right, now, so this is our Swiss cheese. So I'm going to cut these almost like wedges of if you're making wedge fries

Okay. Like home fries, kind of. Right, exactly. All right, now, here's our deli meat ham

I love Cuban sandwiches. I love Cuban food. It really does remind me of growing up with my family

We used to make Cuban food. Is your father Cuban? Both my parents. Both my parents

You know what? Why don't you let me fry those for you

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

All right, you want to fry these? I'll start making the mojo. Yes. I think these baskets are going to work better for us. Yeah

Rather than just dropping that yuca down in there and it's splashing all over us

Now, you're making what kind of sauce are you making? Mojo. And that's for the yuca

That's for the yuca. Okay, well, let me tell you what I ate with French fries. I ate mayonnaise with my French fries

What you looking like that for, girl? It's so incredible. Really? So incredible

And I have learned over the years it's very European. Oh. So you're fancy

In Europe, they serve mayonnaise. No, I didn't know that. But they serve mayonnaise with their fries in Europe

Wow, look at that. Sounds like a French fry. Now, can I help you do anything towards getting that

Well, what's going on with the sandwich? Should we finish that? Yeah. You want me to go ahead and put it together

Sure. So do I do like the same portion of pork and ham

I think just half, yeah, the same portion. Okay. So I'm just heating up the olive oil, and I'm going to saute some garlic

Okay. I'm going to add some lemon juice, a little bit of orange juice, salt, pepper, and cumin

All right, now you let me know when this yucca suits you, okay

I think that's good. Okay. Looks very brown. Okay, I salt it

Put a little salt on there Okay I will do it And you want to do that while it hot I going to turn this down

Yum. Uh-huh. Cumin. Mm-hmm. A little bit of salt and pepper. Mmm

Tastes like home. Okay, and now for our pickles. Pickles. 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'm hungry? 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 going to get rid of me. Oh, I can't believe you said, did you butter that bread, Paula

Can I pour some of this on? I hope you're not going to be kissing Michael later, because your breath is going to smell like garlic

It does not matter. He's probably used to it by now. He'll forgive me. Look at that

You bad, bad little spitfire Cuban girl, you. Let's see. I want to make it

Wait a second. Citrus? Mm-hmm. Lemon? And garlic

Mm-hmm. We'll be back in a minute with the Cuban sandwiches, y'all

Ay-yi-yi! Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi! Coming up, we're finishing up this fine Cuban feast with a parfait to top it all off

I'm thinking I want this in my mouth right now. I'm thinking I want it in my mouth, too

Y'all, I have found out that I'm in love with Yuka. Thank you

Thank you, girlfriend. Thank you. Delicious, though. Great time of day. This I'm excited about

If you would, pumpkin, slice us some banana. You got it. And we had two loaf pans of our chocolate cake

Look at this. How pretty is that? Delicious. All right, now I'm just going to cut this in cubes, y'all

And I'm going to stack this really any way I want to. I think I'm going to start with a drop of custard

And then we're going to come in here with a little layer of whipped cream, a couple of bananas

I'm thinking I want this in my mouth right now. I'm thinking I want it in my mouth, too

And, y'all, this sits. It just gets a little bit more good-er

Is that a word, more good-er? It is now. Why don't you get down there, get our sandwiches plated up, Ooh

And you and I are going to have a little Cuban chow down

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

Oh. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. And look, Sabrina, I have your whole cake to take on

Mm. 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 the Cuban bread is..

I'm gonna walk. That's a good sandwich

Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. This is insane. Okay, parfait time. Look at that cute little thing, y'all

And you just fix these up ahead of time. That's a perfect bite

Yes. Put the lid on them and put them in the refrigerator

And after you're done eating, if you've got to run, you can throw it in your purse

tote it with you to the grocery store eat it while you're buying groceries

the day I have a parfait in my purse I'm going to need an intervention

I'm there these are so good whoa get back in there

that would have been a travesty it felt it was getting away from me

but it's not you got to try this Cuban sandwich and yucca yucca

yucca yucca Yucca ain't yucky. Yucca be good