Cuban Sandwich

I hate packing. I'm leaving for ten days tomorrow and I haven't started. At all. Instead, I decided to try a new recipe out! Last January I was in Miami and had this AMAZING sandwich at the restaurant in the hotel where I was staying. I made a giant crock pot full of pulled pork Sunday and have been trying to come up with different ways to use the pork (because apparently BBQ is not acceptable every day of the week according to my husband.) I decided I would try to replicate my Miami experience tonight.

I started with onions. I sliced two onions and caramelized them. This was pretty much the longest process of what I made for supper tonight but man, it's always worth it.

Next I started on the sauce. I looked up the hotel restaurant and the sauce on that sandwich was Mojo sauce. It calls for sour orange juice. I've never heard of it. Didn't even know where to begin looking for it at the grocery store. Fortunately, fellow cooking fanatics never let me down and I found a substitute (though they always followed by saying it wasn't as good...) I minced about...7 cloves of garlic? I forgot to keep track. It was more than 5, for sure. In a skillet, saute the garlic in 1/3c of olive oil for about 2 minutes. Add 1/3c of orange juice, 1/3c of lemon juice, 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, and 1/2 tsp ground cumin. Let it cook until it smells really citrusy- about 1-2 minutes- then remove to a bowl to cool.

Once the sauce has cooled, mix 1/4c of the sauce (making sure you stir well so you get the garlic) with 2 tbsp of mayo. I use Olive Oil mayo. This makes the sauce slightly thicker but thin enough to still be a sauce.

I took the pork, that had already been pulled, and warmed it on the stove. Nothing fancy was done to the pork roast while it cooked. I just added salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder and let it cook in water for the day. It's a good base seasoning that can then be used in multiple recipes (like BBQ pork sandwiches and pork tacos!)

Now to assemble the sandwich. I bought some fresh ciabatta bread from the store and sliced it up. We used pepper jack slices of cheese rather than Swiss. The Swiss is really good but we don't eat it enough in our house to buy it. The cheese went on one side of the bread. The other side got some of the sauce and caramelized onions. I loaded it with some of the pork and drizzled some more sauce on it. Close it up, cut it half, and wear something that you don't mind dripping on!