How To Make Cubanos with Homemade Cuban Bread

Now you may be thinking , Josh , we don't need a whole video just for a sandwich .

Whoa , whoa , whoa , just a sandwich .

This is a cultural work of art .

But also yeah , we do .

We've been into the Humble Cubano .

Now a lot of people have requested this .

Uh Obviously a lot of you guys know it from the movie chef , one of my favorite movies of all time .

There's a lot of specifics that make this sandwich special .

It's not just a sandwich , there's a whole lot of stuff that goes into making it and it's really kind of supposed to have a specific outcome .

Granted there are things that people play with and all the purists that are watching this are probably going to take a fat because they're like , oh you did this , this , this , this , this , this is wrong and I just don't care because to me this tasted very close to what is correct and it was very delicious and I sort of made it my way but with respect to the culture .

So with that said , let's make this shall we first thing we need to talk about is our moo pork .

You need a big thick 3 to £4 boneless pork shoulder except for the fact that I didn't look at the sign and it was misleading and it actually was not boneless and I had to debone it myself .

Yeah .

Uh , don't do that now to a blender , you're gonna add , add two peeled shallots , two heads worth of garlic .

Cloves , like 15 cloves .

The zest of two oranges and the zest of three limes , two tablespoons of fresh oregano leaves , half a bunch of fresh mint leaves , one tablespoon or 5 g of fresh ground cumin two whole Serrano chilies , one cup or 240 mL of olive oil , 1.5 tablespoons or 26 g of kosher salt and lastly one cup or 240 mL each of lime juice and orange juice .

So two cups total .

Put a lid on your spinny cutty thing and blend it on high speed until completely smooth and nice looking like this .

Now , this is your moo marinade , separate it out one cup and place it in the fridge .

You can use that for lots of stuff and we're also gonna use it for the sandwich later .

Now , the rest of your moo you're gonna pour over your pork into a plastic bag , seal it nicely and let it marinate in the fridge overnight .

Make sure that there's no leaks or you're gonna have a bad time .

Let's talk Cuban bread .

Finding the good stuff .

Can be rather hard .

So we're gonna make our own start off by mixing one and a quarter cup or 295 mL of warm water or around 100 F with one tablespoon or 10 g of active dry yeast .

Give a little mixy , mixy and let that sit for about eight minutes while that's sitting .

You're gonna mix together 3.5 cups or 500 g of bread flour along with one tablespoon or 13 g of granulated sugar and two teaspoons or 5 g of fine sea salt whisk that together until thoroughly combined , begin mixing on medium low speed in a stand mixer .

Add in your warm yeast mixture and let that stir and neat until everything's thoroughly combined and continue to mix for about 3 to 5 minutes or until it begins to turn smooth , then add 2.5 tablespoons or 30 g of solidified lard .

Yes .

Specifically lard just do .

It .

Don't be a widow baby and then mix on low speed for about a minute until combined and nice and smooth oil up a medium sized bowl , shape your dough into a bowl and place it into your bowl .

Cover it with greased plastic wrap and let that rise for 45 minutes to an hour or until doubled , degas your dough by back handing it repeatedly .

Just punch it down .

Yeah .

Dump it out onto a lightly flowered work surface and divide it into two even pieces , cover your dough with a damp towel and let it rest for about 10 minutes just to relax a little sleepy sleep .

Now , take one of your segments of dough and flatten it out .

So you get a roughly a half inch thick rectangle and then starting from the bottom closest to you , you're gonna tightly roll it up from the bottom all the way up to the top , doing your best to close the seams on the bottom and on the sides and then carefully begin rolling it out while applying pressure outward to sort of taper the ends .

Now , one thing about tension is you can rub your fingers along the length of the dough while also keeping contact with your board , help tighten it up a little bit .

Place the finished log onto a parchment lined baking sheet , repeat with a second log and place it on the same baking sheet at least 4 to 5 inches apart , cover that baking sheet with another baking sheet and let that proof for about 30 minutes at room temperature to bake these lightly spray them with water and then using a razor blade score a shallow steam along the entire length of the dough , place it in an oven that's been preheated to 400 F .

And underneath , you're gonna add a small pan of boiling water , make sure to spray the inside of the oven just a little bit .

We're generating steam here , close the oven and let that steam for 8 to 10 minutes .

Reduce the heat to 3 75 .

Remove your steaming pan and let it bake for another 20 to 22 minutes or until you pull out two thick plump , lightly browned Cuban breads .

Make sure to let this cool down completely before you use it .

I actually like to bake this stuff a day or two ahead of time .

It's ok if they're soft because you're toasting it anyway .

Wow .

First off big win .

Oh my God .

I mean , look at , I'm , look my son .

Oh , that smells really good .

Put it down , put it down and now it's Cubano .

Ok .

So back to our marinating pork .

Good juicy master carefully remove your pork from the marinade , place it into a seven quart Dutch oven and then pour in all the marinade into the same pot with the pork .

You come up around halfway and if it doesn't , you can always add a little bit of chicken stock to bring it there .

Then just take that pot , place it into an oven set to 400 F for 10 minutes .

Then immediately reduce the temperature to 3 50 let it cook .

Turning occasionally to make sure all sides get brown for 3 to 3 and a half hours and then you'll end up with this beautifully brown juicy , incredibly tender piece of meat .

Let that cool a little bit in the bottom of the pot .

You have all that Mojo that's separated from the fat .

I'll admit it looks a little bit like diarrhea , but it's caramelized , almost comfy in the fat .

Take all those solids out , pulling out as little fat as possible , place them into a bowl .

And you've got this sort of like caramelized Mojo sauce , which we'll use in a second .

Now , once your meat is cool enough to handle or you have as best as hands like I do or well , maybe not shred it apart so that you burn your hands a little bit because you thought it was cool .

But it's actually not once all your meat is shredded , toss it together , all that caramelized Mojo season it to taste of salt and there is your pulled pork .

Now we're ready to assemble our sandwiches .

Now , before we assemble , let's talk about our condiments .

First thing dill pickles , get them whole and slice them yourself .

I don't want to see any more little circles .

OK .

I want long boy slices like this makes more sense for a sandwich .

Let's be honest .

Now let's first toast .

The inside of our bread .

Cut a piece of your Cuban bread to a desirable length .

Slice that bad boy in half and butter the inside with soft and unsalted butter place that cut buttered side down into a cold pan set over medium heat and let that bad boy toast .

Now , while that's toasted , you're gonna need some good boiled ham and by boiled ham , I mean , cooked , not smoked , but you can also use smoked if you want .

Add a little bit of butter in the pan just to coat the bottom .

Set it to medium high heat and sear off at least 5 to 6 slices of good ham .

Get some good color on both sides .

Set it to the side .

Keep that warm .

Now , once your bread is nice and toasted like this , don't over toast it OK .

It's assembly time .

So get your two sliced toasted breads down , coat them both generously with yellow mustard on the bottom slice shingle on your pickles .

Appropriately , followed by your seared off ham , your roasted pork , shoulder and top with a amount of Swiss cheese .

Now look , I like to get a little bit of color on my cheese .

You can totally torch it just to get that melting process done .

Get some caramelization and then top with the top of the bread .

Now look , this is the final and most important piece with more softened and salted butter generously coat both the bottom and the top of your bread .

I know this seems weird .

Place it into a cold pan , set that over medium heat and then place a preheated heavy cast iron pan on top of it .

Emphasis on preheating the cast iron pan .

Make sure that it's relatively hot , not ripping hot but hot and then just let that press and toast and until the bottom is nice and golden flip it , place the pan back on and continue to press and sear obviously , you can do this in a panini press or a plan .

I didn't have one .

So this is the way you do it without one next thing , you know , boom pop .

You pull this thin mean Cuban Sando out of the pan and look , it's just so beautiful .

And that is a Cuban sandwich , but of course , we've got to taste it now .

This feels like a Cubano to me .

I'm pretty darn proud of it .

First .

The sound .

This is to perfection .

You hear that dinner so good .

The exterior is super crispy , crunchy .

But then the inside is nice and soft .

You have that fatty melt in your mouth .

Pork , the seared ham , it's salty , it's picky , it's mustardy and you've got the Swiss cheese on top to bring it all together .

You know , some might say Josh , all that effort for a sandwich .

Yes , you will not have a better sandwich in your life , but you wanna know what else won't have a better sandwich in its life .

That doesn't make sense .

The roll .

All right guys .

And that is it .

So we made Cubanos A K Cuban sandwiches .

A K the Cuban sandwich , Cubano Cabana , a wearing pajamas Cuban sandwich is a very simple thing .

It just takes a lot of love and time and caring and hugs and kisses for the sandwich and for yourself .

At the end of this , I gotta say , despite all the time that goes into just making a sandwich , hey , you have a lot of leftover meat .

I have mine right here .

You could put it on rice , you could put it in another sandwich .

You could put it in quesadilla .

They're so many options with the leftovers .

Even just the final product is so rewarding once it all comes together and it's such an perfect sandwich that , that alone makes it worth it again .

Thank you guys for the wonderful response of my merch .

There's still a couple of items that are still available , they're dwindling .

But if there , if there's anything you want , if you're gonna want a hat or a shirt , the apron is officially sold out , but there's still a couple of things left small quantity .

There will be a link in the description .

But with all that said , if you enjoyed this video or you learn something , leave a like , subscribe and I will see you next time .