Secret Recipe Club: Cuban Sandwich

Note to SRC: my deepest apologies to Wendy for the late link-up.

It's Secret Recipe Club time again, and this month's assignment is Wendy from La Phemme Foodie. Wendy blogs from Philledelphia, where she's a lawyer by day and a food blogger and photographer by night.

For the assignment, we considered several recipes, including slow cooker ribs in a root beer barbecue sauce, as buffalo wing macaroni and cheese, but in the end, I had a craving for a sandwich, and her Cuban sandwich won the day.

We made a few changes to the recipe out of necessity. On the shopping trip for ingredients, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find roasted pork. Our grocery store doesn't have a proper deli, so we're stuck with packaged prepared meats. They did have sliced roast beef, so I picked up some of that.

Meredith was quick to point out that it's very unlikely that you'd be able to find a Cuban sandwich anywhere that's not made of pork, and it's even less likely that you'd find one made of beef, given the abundance of pigs and the lack of beef cattle.

We also decided to use a French baguette instead of a plain kaiser roll. That's was simply because I'm not keen on huge, overly heavy breads.

In the end, the sandwich turned out really well. It grilled nicely in our panini press (we chose the griddle attachment) and was warm and tasty. We'll likely be making this again

Cuban Sandwich

1/3 cup diced dill pickles
1/3 cup diced pickled banana peppers
1 baguette, sliced into two 8" lengths and split in half
2 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp mustard (we used Dijon)
100g pound thinly sliced smoked ham
150g pound thinly sliced cold roast pork (we used roast beef)
2-4 slices Swiss cheese
1 tsp margarine or cooking spray (we used cooking spray)

1. Preheat a panini grill to medium.
2. Combine pickles and peppers in a small bowl and set aside.
3. Spread 1 tbsp mayonnaise on the bottom half and 1 tbsp mustard on the bottom of each sandwich.
4. Layer the remaining ingredients in the following order: ham, roast pork (or beef), pickle mixture and cheese.
5. Gently flatten sandwich and spread margarine on the top.
6. Transfer the sandwich to the panini grill and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Serve immediately.

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