It’s Super Bowl Sunday and I’m here with my last throwdown for the 2020-21 NFL season. Today’s match-up has the potential to be pretty epic and is the first time in Super Bowl history that the host city has its team represented in the big game. Master v Grasshopper, Yoda v Luke, Old v Young, whatever you want to call it, it’s going to pit the G.O.A.T. against a very promising young quarterback, who may rival Brady’s greatness in years to come, as Mahomes tries to win back-to-back Super Bowls.
Representing the G.O.A.T. and his Buccaneers, I decided to go with the G.O.A.T. sandwiches, representing Ybor City/Tampa, the Cuban. I still contend that the best Cuban sandwich I’ve had is at Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City. While relying on their recipe, a Tampa-specific ingredient (Genoa Salami), and award-winning honored stacking/application of ingredients, I decided to pump-up the pork offering in the sandwich by making a Cuban Mojo Pork Roast - it is Super Sunday after all!
Accompanying this amazing sandwich, and representing Kansas City, is a winter take on Jack Stack Barbecue’s Cheesy Corn Bake. Think of it as creamed corn meets mac & cheese. But, why am I qualifying it with “winter take”? Well, for one, you can’t get fresh corn right now and, two, it’s snowing outside, so I couldn’t reliably smoke any meat on my grill either! I try to make up for this by using some smoky bacon and rendering cubed ham steak in the rendered fat - lightly caramelizing the ham to mimic a char, and using some smoked cheddar. You can use thawed frozen corn if you like, but I went with canned. I hope you all have a delicious day full of good football, quenching libations and tasty food!
Cuban Sandwich
Cuban Sandwich, adapted from The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook,
Adela Hernandez Gonzmart and Ferdie Pacheco
This recipe calls for Cuban bread, but if you can find it nearby (like me), use Ciabatta or a soft Italian loaf, nothing too crusty or thick. If you don’t have a panini press, you can use a grill pan, or skillet, and a hot cast iron skillet to smash down the top of the sandwich. You’ll want to weigh down the top skillet with a brick.
Footlong Cuban loaf or Ciabatta
5 thinly shaved slices of smoked deli ham
5 thinly sliced pieces of Cuban Mojo Pork Roast (see below)
4 slices of Genoa salami
2 slices lacey Swiss cheese
4 sandwich-sliced dill pickles
Yellow mustard
Spreadable butter
The day before you are going to make the sandwich, prepare the Cuban Mojo Pork Roast. Let it cool completely and thinly slice what you need, reserving the remainder for another meal.
Preheat a panini press.
Meanwhile, slice open your loaf, lengthwise. Leave the bottom half dry and place on the ingredients in this order: ham, roast pork, salami, cheese, pickles. Slather the top half of the loaf with yellow mustard. Lightly butter the exterior of both loaves, cut the sandwich in half (on the bias) and place on the panini press (or skillet) and cook until done, about 6 minutes.
Cuban Mojo Pork Roast
Mojo is a citrus-based marinade. You can use whatever you can get your hands on, but typically it’s made with lime, lemon, and oranges. Do NOT substitute ordinary orange juice in this recipe as it is too sweet; traditional mojo uses freshly squeezed oranges which are slightly bitter, so you can even use grapefruit if you like as well.
Spice mix: 3 tbsp each garlic/onion powder; 2 tbsp black pepper; 1 tbsp each paprika/cumin
1.5 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
3 large garlic cloves, smashed
1 cup each of freshly squeezed lemon & orange juice
½ cup freshly squeezed lime juice
3 tbsp white, distilled vinegar
¼ cup oregano leaves
1.5 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1.5 tbsp Kosher salt
~8 lb bone-in pork butt (shoulder)
Squeeze your citrus into a large 4-cup measuring cup.
Preheat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat and sweat the onion with a pinch of table salt. Once softened, about 5 minutes, add the garlic cloves and stir until fragrant, about a minute. Pour in the squeezed juice through a fine-mesh strainer and increase the heat to high. Once boiling, reduce to medium low and simmer for a couple of minutes. Pour half of the mixture into a blender and let cool for a few minutes. Let the remainder of the marinade completely cool and place in the fridge; reserve it as a citrus jus.
Prepare the spice mix and stir in a bowl or jar. Place 3 tbsp of the spice mix into the blender.
Set the remainder aside.
To the blender, also add the vinegar, oregano, Worcestershire sauce and Kosher salt. Blend until combined. Place the pork shoulder into a 2-gallon sized ziploc bag and pour the blended marinade over it, sealing the bag. Place in the fridge for 18-24 hours. N.B. If you can’t find a 2-gallon sized bag, squeeze it into a 1-gallon bag with the bone end-up, place into a large bowl and cover with cling-wrap.
After the pork has marinated, remove the shoulder and pat dry. Score the fat cap in a criss-cross pattern, and flip the shoulder over. Season the bottom and sides, rubbing the spices into the meat. Flip over and heavily season the fat cap, rubbing it into the crevasses and give the whole roast a final rub with the remaining spice blend. Place the pork on a rack in a roast pan.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, placing the rack in the lower-third. If you have a probe-style thermometer, insert it in the deepest portion of the meat, ensuring not to come into contact with the bone. Once the oven has come to temperature, place the roast in the oven and connect the probe to your thermometer.
After an hour, lower the temperature to 350 and continue cooking until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 150 (an add'l 40 mins). At that point, reduce the oven temperature to 285 degrees and roast until the internal temperature reaches 175 degrees (this took about 2 more hours - for a total cook time of nearly 4 hours). Do NOT pull the roast at 165 thinking the temperature will rise during the rest - since we're roasting this at a low temperature at the tail end of the cookery, the temp will only drop during the resting period.
Once the pork has reached 175, unplug the thermometer and move the roast to a cutting board to cool (keeping the thermometer inside the meat until you’re ready to carve, as to not lose any extra juices) for about 45 minutes. As you can see above, I still lost a good amount of pork gold after a 40 minute rest, so you may want to wait a full hour, maybe even a little longer before carving. The meat was still tender and juicy, though.
Thinly slice some pork for your Cuban sandwiches and reserve the remaining roast for another meal with the citrus jus.
Cheesy Corn
If it’s summer, use some fresh corn by slicing it raw off the cob. If you have any extra barbecued/smoked meat laying around, throw that in as well, but this is how I prepare it in the winter.
1 slice of thick-cut bacon, minced
1/2 cup of diced ham steak
1 can of sweet, yellow corn - drained
1/2 cup of whole milk
4 oz cream cheese
1/4 tsp garlic powder
Cayenne pepper
Minced fresh thyme
1/2 cup shredded smoked cheddar
1/4 cup shredded aged, cheddar
Render the bacon in a large saucepan over medium heat, after some fat has rendered, stir in the diced ham and continue cooking until the bacon is crispy. Preheat the oven to broil placing the rack 6 inches from the broiler.
Using a rubber spatula, stir in the corn, milk, cream cheese, garlic powder and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Stir continuously until the cream cheese has melted. Season with a heavy pinche of black pepper, and a pinch of thyme, and then stir occasionally until the mixture starts to bubble at the edges, about 8-10 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the smoked cheddar to thicken. Then pour the mixture into 2 medium broiler-safe ramekins/crocks and sprinkle on the aged cheddar. Place in the oven and cook until spotty brown, monitoring for good browning.
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Copyright 2021, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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