Let me just come right out and say it.  These Swedish meatballs are the bomb!  Seriously.  They. Are. Awesome.  IKEA had better watch out. I’m just sayin’.

Swedish meatballs are a perennial favorite among the smörgåsbord set, which is why I had to include them in my Meatball Week series.   These plump and moist little nuggets of meat are delicately seasoned with fragrant spices like cardamom, allspice and nutmeg before being bathed in a rich and velvety cream sauce.  As with most traditional ethnic dishes, you’ll find as many different recipes for Swedish meatballs as there are cooks who make them.  I’ve tried many different versions, and I think this one is the best I’ve tasted.

The basic recipe for my meatballs came from Marcus Samuelsson, who got it from his Swedish grandma.  When a recipe comes from a famous chef’s grandma, you just know it has to be good.   With ingredients like honey and pickle juice, it’s unlike any I’ve seen before.    I did deviate quite a bit from the original, but that’s just how I roll.  That’s the great thing about recipes like this.  There’s lots of room to improvise.

The meatballs themselves are made with a mixture of beef, pork and veal.  I’ve always been a fan of using veal in meatballs.  I think it gives them a lighter texture and better flavor.

Let’s get started! 

To make the meatballs, you first sauté some finely diced onions in olive oil.  Set them aside to cool while you gather up the rest of the meatball ingredients.

Toss the sautéed onions in with the other ingredients and mix them all up together in a big bowl.   Form as many golf ball sized meatballs as you can get.  I got a ton.  Then, brown them in a skillet.  But, don’t cook them all the way through.

Yes, that is butter that those meatballs are frying in – big, fat, voluptuous butter.  But, it’s okay.  I don’t do this every day.  And, I don’t have an endorsement deal with any big drug companies.

Next, whip up that fabulous Swedish meatball sauce.   You start by making a roux, which is used as a thickening base for all kinds of sauces, gravies, soups and stews.  A roux a mixture of butter and flour that is cooked together until it reaches varying shades of brown, depending on what it’s being used for. Cooking the flour allows it to thicken the sauce without giving it a “raw”, starchy taste.  The roux for this dish should be on the lighter side – sort of like a café au lait color.  Marcus’s grandma’s recipe doesn’t call for a roux.  But, I wanted a sauce with more body, so I made one.

When the roux is ready, add some stock, a little at a time so that it doesn’t sputter up and splash you in the face. Trust me, that is not pleasant!

Then, add some heavy cream, lingonberry preserves and pickle juice.   No, that’s not a typo.  I thought the pickle juice was weird too.  Just do it, though.  You’ll thank me later.

When the sauce starts to bubble,  gently plop the meatballs in.   Then, simmer them in that glorious sauce until they’re cooked through.  Honestly, it took almost all of my self-control not to just slurp that sauce up with a big, fat, giant spoon!

Serve them with more lingonberry preserves and some pickled cucumber slices -  and watch your guests drool.

TOUCHDOWN!

If you missed the first two Meatball Week installments, you can find them here:

• Scallion Meatballs with Soy-Ginger Glaze
• Kefta Meatballs in Moroccan-Spiced Tomato Sauce

It’s meatball week here at Chez SGCC.  That’s because we love meatballs and think they make the perfect Super Bowl nosh.   They’re compact, easy to eat and can be made a zillion different ways.  So, as we count down to the big game, I’ll be sharing some different and delicious meatball recipes for you all to try out.

Let’s kick off with these yummy Asian-style Scallion Meatballs with a Soy-Ginger Glaze.

The original recipe for these tasty little morsels, from Canal House Cooking, calls for ground turkey.  I decided to make them with a combination of ground chicken and pork.    You can use whatever you want.  Turkey is perfectly fine.   I just think that Asian meatballs should be made with chicken and pork.   I also put a splash of fish sauce in my meatballs.  Don’t ask me why.  I’m just crazy like that.  I think it ups the umami quotient. 

I like to pulse the meat up a few times in the food processor before I mix in the rest of the ingredients.  You don’t have to do this either.  I find it gives the meatballs a finer texture, though.

There are no bread crumbs or other thickeners in the original recipe either.  I found the meatball mixture to be a little too wet for the balls to hold their shape, so I added a little cornstarch to it.  It worked great!

I love these gratuitous frying pan shots, don’t you?  The bubbles make me giddy!

Once your meatballs are all cooked, serve them with a drizzle of soy-ginger glaze.  They taste even better if you eat them with cute little curly-topped bamboo toothpicks like these.

Sometimes I have to sniff out my inspiration for recipes like a bloodhound.  Other times, it just falls effortlessly right into my lap – like the idea for this fabulous and fun take on traditional meatloaf.  These are meatloaf cupcakes.  Yes, that’s right.  MEATLOAF CUPCAKES! Succulent and flavorful little “cakes” of meat with a rich and buttery mashed potato “icing” piped on top.  Are they not adorable?  Are they not brilliant?  They are!  They are!  Now, let me tell you how they came to be.

A few nights ago, I was hanging out on Facebook.  I’ve told you before how much I love, love, love Facebook.  I even love it more than Twitter, because it doesn’t give me eyestrain while trying to read constantly moving, teeny, tiny text or have little boxes popping up in my face every two seconds, distracting me when I’m trying to work.  And Facebook also has a “Like” button, so when I want to acknowledge something one of my friends has posted, I can just “Like” it with one click instead of having to actually type something.  I know.  Sometimes, I can be a lazy sack of you-know-what.

Anyway, as I said, I was hanging out on Facebook when a caterer friend of mine wrote on my wall asking if I had a good recipe for meatloaf cupcakes.  Huh?  Did she mean cupcakes decorated to look like meatloaf, or meatloaf made to look like cupcakes?  So, I asked her.  She told me that it was a new catering trend to make individual meatloaves in cupcake tins topped with mashed potatoes.  “Hah!” I thought, “What a great idea!” I immediately informed her that I was stealing it for the blog.

Creating these meatloaf cupcakes is pretty straightforward and doesn’t require any special tricks or tips.  Just prepare your favorite meatloaf recipe as you normally would, and bake it in a cupcake/muffin tin instead of a loaf pan.  The only thing I would suggest is to whip your potatoes with an electric mixer until they are very smooth.  This will make piping them onto the meat much easier and will give them the look of real “icing”.  I added an egg yolk to my potatoes to give them a little extra richness and smoothness, but that’s totally up to you.

There are many beautiful things about this dish, the first being that it will work with any meatloaf recipe that you happen to love.  I have a couple that I am very partial to, and I used one of those.  Also, since the meatloaf is baked in individual portions, it takes substantially less time to cook and is easier to serve.  I’m thinking that this would be a wonderful addition to any buffet table – like maybe for a Super Bowl party or a child’s birthday party.  The cuteness factor is bound to make these “cupcakes” a big hit with the kids.

My meatloaf cupcakes were so popular here at Chez SGCC that I’m already itching to try them again with some tweaks, like perhaps a Moroccan-spiced lamb version.  Or, how about taco meatloaf cupcakes?  Or, Italian sausage meatloaf cupcakes?  The possibilities are deliciously endless!  Hmmm.  D‘ya think I might be getting just a tad obsessed with these?

Enjoy!

Happy day! After resisting for years, I finally broke down and joined a CSA.  Well, not a true CSA exactly, but close.  To be honest, I was never really sold on the idea of getting a big mystery box of produce each week and then having to figure out what to do with it.  I kind of like to choose what ingredients I cook with, and plan my meals based on what inspires me.  Plus, I wasn’t crazy about the fact that I had to prepay for the season and was locked in every week, whether I was able to use the stuff or not.  Still, I loved the idea of having access to all of those lovely fresh fruits and veggies, because lord knows, I can rarely  find them at my local market! Enter Suncoast Organics and the perfect solution to my produce dilemma.

Suncoast Organics is a new business in my area that delivers – yes, DELIVERS – just picked, farm fresh, organic produce each week directly to my doorstep.  It’s similar to a CSA in that there is a membership fee, but it’s a small one and you don’t have to pay it all up front.  Also, I get to choose exactly what products I want and how much of each I want.  So, each week, I just click on Suncoast Organics’ web site, check out what’s available for that week, order what I want and pay as I go.  Brilliant, right?  If I’m going out of town or I just don’t feel like ordering one week, I don’t have to.  No wasteful spending and no wasted produce!  I still have to pay the $10.00 membership fee, but I can live with that. If I decide to discontinue the service, all I have to do is email Julie and Jim and let them know.  It’s a great compromise between a traditional CSA and buying my produce somewhere like Whole Foods.  Plus, it’s cheaper than you know where.

Last week I got some interesting things in my veggie basket, including yardlong beans, or Chinese long beans.  I have never, ever seen them before at the market, and I’m pretty sure I’d never eaten them before either.  I was psyched! 

Look how pretty they are!

I also got a bag of these gorgeous shiitake mushrooms.  Need I say more?

I put my Asian food thinking cap on and decided to combine them in a stir fry with ground pork, garlic, ginger and black bean sauce. I hunted around the web for some inspiration and found lots of great ideas.  In fact, I found too many great ideas!  So, I took a pinch of this and a smidge of that, and came up with my own version of Chinese Long Beans with Shiitake Mushrooms and Pork in Black Bean Sauce.

I heated up some grapeseed oil in my cast iron wok that I got last year at The Wok Shop. I love that wok!  I love The Wok Shop too!

Then, I cooked my garlic, ginger and ground pork. Next, I added the long beans that weren’t so long anymore after I cut them up, and stir fried them until they started to get tender.  Once the beans were on their way to delicious tenderness, I added in the shiitake mushrooms and cooked it all a little bit more.  Finally, I poured in the black bean sauce and simmered it for another several minutes and I was done.

There are lots of good recipes for homemade black bean sauce, but I decided to save some time by using a pre-made sauce from the Asian market.   There are a few good ones around, but the best one I’ve tried is from Lee Kum Kee.  I use it to make a similar dish with chicken and eggplant, as well as those tasty little steamed spareribs you see a lot on dim sum menus.

My verdict on the long beans?  I really liked them.  They were a lot like regular green beans, but chewier and a little saltier.  They played very nicely with the shiitake mushrooms, as those also tend to be a little chewy.  In fact, I would definitely consider the whole dish to be a success.

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on more long beans as soon as I can.  Next time, I’d love to try them stewed, Italian-style, with fresh tomatoes and potatoes.  Until then, I’m looking forward to my next bag of goodies from Suncoast Organics.

Chinese Long Beans with Shiitake Mushrooms and Pork in Black Bean Sauce

Ingredients:

1 pound long beans
1 pound ground pork
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon fish sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil, divided
Pinch of salt and pepper
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1-2 tablespoons unflavored oil, such as vegetable, canola or grapeseed
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 teaspoon finely minced ginger
1/2 pound shiitake mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
3 tablespoons prepared black bean sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/2 -1 cup water

Preparation:

Rinse and cut the long beans into 3-inch lengths. Set aside.

Combine the pork, soy sauce, fish sauce, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, salt, pepper and cornstarch together in a medium bowl.   Mix well with a fork or your fingers until thoroughly combined.  Let it sit for about 5-10 minutes.

In a wok or large skillet, heat the unflavored oil on high heat until smoking, then add the garlic and ginger. Stirring constantly, fry for about 10-20 seconds until fragrant. Be careful not to burn it.  Add the pork and cook until it almost no pink remains, breaking up the chunks as you go. This should take about 2-3 minutes if your wok is really hot.

Add the long beans to the wok and continue to cook for about 4-5 minutes, or until no pink remains in the pork and the beans begin to get tender.   Add the mushrooms and cook about 2 minutes.  Remember to keep all of the ingredients moving so that nothing burns.

Whisk the black bean sauce, rice wine, brown sugar and 1/2 cup water together in a small bowl.

Reduce the heat to medium, and stir in the black bean mixture.  Taste it and if the sauce is too strong for you, add the rest of the water.  Continue to simmer and stir for another 5-8 minutes, or until the beans are cooked through and tender.

Remove the wok from the heat and mix in the remaining teaspoon of sesame oil.  Adjust the seasonings if necessary.

Serve as is, or with some steamed rice or noodles.

Serves 4.

Enjoy!

Wow! I was just cleaning out my Drafts folder and found this post.  I can’t believe that I forgot to share these with you!  The recipe for these sassy little Huaraches is another one that I learned from Chef Luis at my cooking class adventure in Cozumel.  They’re super delicious and super easy to make.  Plus, you can dress them up all pretty and serve them to company.  No one would ever guess that they only take about ten minutes to prepare.

Huaraches is a traditional Mexican dish consisting of a fried masa base, with a variety of toppings.  Masa is a dough made from cornmeal and is a common ingredient in Mexican cuisine. The name huaraches is derived from the oblong shape of the masa dough, similar to the sandals of the same name.  Huaraches are usually built on a large masa base and eaten as a meal, but Chef Luis had us make small ones to serve as appetizers.  

By the way, that is not me in the picture above.  It is one of my classmates. She claimed to be a pastry chef from Mississippi or somewhere.  I don’t know about that, but I do know that she doesn’t like to be photographed.  Don’t ask me how I know.  I just know. ‘Nuff said.

In class, we made our own masa bases for our huaraches using a tortilla press.  You can certainly do that too, except I can’t tell you how, because Chef Luis didn’t give us the recipe for them.  Sigh…  But, I’ve adapted the recipe for you using corn tortillas, which are readily available at any Latin market and most supermarkets.   If you’re fortunate enough to live near a tortilleria, a shop that sells freshly made tortillas, so much the better.

Don’t mind the mess on my tray.  Some people were getting annoyed with me because I was taking so many pictures, and I didn’t want to take the time to move the stray bits out of the shot.  For the record, I only took 394 shots.

These huaraches are topped with a traditional mixture of spicy chorizo sausage, diced potatoes, cotija cheese and refried black beans. All of these ingredients can also  be found at your local supermarket, as can the crema used as a garnish. If, for some reason, you can’t find crema, which is the Mexican version of sour cream, just use regular sour cream or crème fraiche.  It will be just as good.

To make the topping for our huaraches, we liberated the chorizo from its casing and sautéed it with some diced potatoes.  If I make these again, I would definitely add some finely diced onion to the mix as well.  I would also heat up the refried beans a little before spreading them on the the masa bases.  Chef Luis didn’t have us do that, and I wasn’t crazy about the cold beans.   Other than that, I thought that these little huaraches were pretty darn tasty.  I think they’d be a great addition to a Mexican-themed buffet.  You could also mix in some scrambled eggs and voila!  Brunch!

Easy Chorizo and Potato Huaraches
adapted from Chef Luis at the Playa Mia Resort

Ingredients:

4 6-inch corn tortillas
2 teaspoons olive oil, divided
1 pound Mexican chorizo sausage, casings removed and crumbled
2 medium white potatoes, parboiled and cut into a 1/4-inch dice
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup canned refried black beans (regular refried beans can be substituted)
1 cup cotija cheese (Parmesan or crumbled feta cheese can be substituted)
1/2 cup shredded iceberg lettuce
Mexican crema or sour cream for garnish
1 teaspoon Mexican or smoked paprika for sprinkling

Preparation:

Heat 1 teaspoon olive oil in a medium, non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Place tortillas in the pan and brown for a minute or two on each side until golden. Remove and set aside.

Heat the second teaspoon of oil in the skillet and sauté the chorizo and potatoes until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, if desired. Remove and set aside.

Spread 1/4 of the refried beans on one side of each tortilla. Then, spoon 1/4 of the chorizo/potato mixture on top of each. Sprinkle 1/4 of the cheese on top of each and top with lettuce.

Drizzle crema or sour cream over everything and sprinkle with a little paprika.

Makes 4 servings.

Enjoy!

First of all, I’d like to wish all the Dads out there a very Happy Father’s Day!  Then, I’d like to remind all the daughters out there who still have their Dads with them how lucky they are.  I lost my father three and a half years ago and I’d give anything to have just one more day with him.  He was a wonderful man and I miss him terribly. Cherish each moment with your loved ones. Time flies by so quickly and there are no “do overs”.

Now that I’ve thoroughly cheered you up, let me tell you about the special Father’s Day dinner I made for Mr. SGCC.  There’s a little Mexican place in town we like to go to called Mi Pueblo.  They have good, fresh food at reasonable prices. Plus, they have a cute old guy that walks around with his guitar, serenading the diners at each table.  It isn’t the Frontera Grill, but we like it.  Our favorite dish at Mi Pueblo is their chiles rellenos.  They make then with these humongous poblano peppers that are stuffed with lots of well-seasoned meat and cheese.  Mr. SGCC absolutely loves them!  I don’t do a lot of Mexican at home, but I decided to try to recreate them for him.

Since I had never made chiles rellenos before, I turned to the guru of Mexican cuisine, Rick Bayless of the Frontera Grill, for guidance.  His chile rellenos are so popular that people line up outside the restaurant an hour before the doors open just to make sure they can get some.  In fact, the restaurant regularly sells out of them within the first twenty minutes!  I figured if Frontera Grill’s chiles rellenos were that hot, they must be good. So, that’s the recipe I decided to go with.  Little did I know at the time what I was in for!

First of all, the recipe is good – very good, in fact.  It is also, however, very long and time consuming as well.  There are four different components in this dish and each requires several steps.   None of the individual steps are particularly difficult, but there are a lot of them.  And be forewarned, you will probably need to hose down your kitchen after you’re finished! 

The first component you need to make is the tomato sauce which is used in both the meat filling and the serving sauce.  It’s an aromatic sauce flavored with onion, Serrano chiles, cinnamon and cloves.  If I had it to do over again, I would probably make this sauce a day or two ahead.  It keeps just fine in the fridge and doing do will cut a good an hour off of your prep time.

The next thing you have to do is make a tomato broth, which is served tableside with the finished chiles rellenos.  All this involves is simmering some of the previously made tomato sauce with some chicken or beef broth.  This is the easiest step in the recipe, but it does require at least forty-five minutes of cooking time.

After that, you need to make the meat filling for the rellenos.  Bayless calls it picadillo.  It’s made with ground pork shoulder, simmered with more of the tomato sauce, vinegar, raisins and almonds.  Very, very tasty!  Both the picadillo and the tomato broth can also be made ahead.

Then, it’s time to prepare the peppers, themselves.  Here is where things get tricky.  Bayless says to roast the poblanos until their skins get blistered and blackened.  Then he says to cut a slit down the side of each, rinsing and removing the seeds as you go, taking care not to tear the peppers.  Have any of you ever tried this?  I’m sorry, but it’s impossible!

My peppers looked perfect when they came out of the oven.  But, the minute I cut into them to remove the seeds, they started to disintegrate! As I tried to stuff them, they just fell apart. I felt like Dr. Kildare as I frantically tried to plug up the rips and holes by shoving in toothpicks everywhere!  By the time I got the peppers all stuffed, there were shreds of pepper skin, pepper seeds and blobs of picadillo smeared all over the place!  I just prayed that battering and frying them would hold them together at least enough so that we could eat them.  I had already given up any hope of getting a decent picture!

Oh, and that was the really fun part –  the battering and frying.  Bayless advises to freeze the stuffed peppers before attempting this step.  I did and it didn’t help me at all.  Plus, I lost another whole hour while my stuffed poblanos sat in the deep freeze!

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m scared of deep frying.  Boiling hot oil and I do not get along – and I have the scars to prove it!  I’m not ashamed of this. It is what it is. So, I really have to have a good reason to attempt it.  I guessed that Father’s Day was as good a reason as any, so I sucked it up and kept going.

I prepared the batter without any trouble. It was a nice, light and fluffy batter, by the way. Bayless says to hold the peppers by their stems, dip them into the batter and quickly pull them straight out  and into the hot oil. Is he kidding?!?! The moment I tried to dip the first pepper in by its stem, the stem broke off and the pepper sank straight to the bottom of the batter bowl.  I tried to fish it out using a fork, and that beautiful picadillo filling came squishing out of every orifice!  I finally just dug my hands in the bowl, grabbed the pepper and plopped it into the oil.   And, you know what?  The batter immediately started to puff up and turn a lovely shade of golden brown.  After a few minutes, instead of looking like a mutilated lump of mush, that pepper actually started to resemble a chile relleno!  That batter was like the Spanx of Mexican cooking! It smoothed out and covered almost every flaw.

I dipped (with my bare hands) and fried the rest of the peppers as fast as I could while I was still on a roll.  I didn’t dare stop for a second to take a picture. Then, I lined them up in a baking dish, doused them with sauce, smothered them with cheese and tossed them in the oven to bake. Both my kitchen and I were covered in picadillo guts, foamy batter and tomato sauce!  Bayless’s recipe doesn’t say to do all this, but I did it anyway. It was all about camouflage, baby!

Take a look.

Not bad, huh?  You have to admit that with all of that zesty tomato sauce and gooey, melted cheese on top, those chiles rellenos look pretty darn appetizing!  You’d never know what a mangled mess they were underneath!

And, OMG, were they delicious!  I hadn’t tasted Mexican food this good since…well… practically ever!  Not even when I was actually in Mexico last week.  Seriously. These chiles rellenos made Mi Pueblo’s version look like they came from Taco Bell!  Mr. SGCC was in chiles rellenos heaven!  He thinks I’m a goddess!  And, after having him heap mountains of praise on me for preparing such a fabulous feast for him, I stupidly replied with a shy smile, “Oh, it was nothing!”.  He believed me and is already bugging me to make them again.  Sigh….. The things we do for love.

Enjoy!

I am of the firm belief that one cannot live in South Florida for any length of time without developing an appreciation of Cuban food.  Seriously. You just can’t. The distinctive Latin flavor of Cuban culture is woven like a ribbon through our cuisine.  It makes perfect sense, though, considering that the most prominent Cuban American community in the United States is in the Miami-Dade metropolitan area.  But, you probably already knew that.  What you might not know is that Tampa Bay boasts the next highest concentration of Cuban Americans in the country.  And, the Tampa Cuban community has been going strong for over a hundred years – way before the mass exodus to Miami under Castro’s regime.

In 1885, Vicente Martinez Ybor, a prominent Spanish cigar manufacturer relocated his base of operations from Cuba via Key West to an area just northeast of Tampa. This was, at least in part, due to Tampa’s combination of a good sea port, new railroad line and humid climate. Ybor built hundreds of small houses for the incoming population of mainly Cuban cigar workers. Other cigar manufacturers, drawn by Ybor’s incentives to increase the labor pool, also moved in making Tampa a major cigar production center. In 1887 Tampa annexed the area and Ybor City was born.

José Martí and cigar workers in Ybor in 1893.

The next three decades, as Ybor city grew and prospered, were considered its “golden age”.   In 1929, cigar production hit its peak when 500,000,000 cigars were rolled in the factories of Ybor City.

Unfortunately, in that same year also came the Great Depression. As a result, the demand for quality handmade Cuban cigars plummeted and there were many layoffs and factory shutdowns. This trend continued throughout the 1930s as the remaining cigar factories gradually switched to using cheaper mechanical methods for producing their cigars.  This, of course, led to even more layoffs and plant closings.

Inside an Ybor City cigar factory ca. 1920

Things looked pretty grim for Ybor City up to and through the 50s and 60s, as the neighborhood continued to deteriorate and empty out.  In an effort to revitalize the community, many historic buildings were demolished to make way for new development. But, due to a lack of available funds this redevelopment didn’t happen.  Sounds kind of familiar, huh?

In the late 80s and early 90s, a sort of revitalization of the area began with an influx of local artists who came into the area seeking eclectic spaces in which to work for cheap rents.  By the year 2000, Ybor City had experienced a Renaissance as a cultural mecca in the Tampa Bay area which  continues to flourish to this day. Although the cigar factories have long been closed, the thriving and vital Cuban American community lives on.

Ybor City today

(Photo by Bobak Ha’Eri shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic License)

Being so close to Tampa and Ybor city, there was bound to be a trickle down effect in our area regarding Cuban food, and there is. We have a lively Cuban American community here on the Gulf Coast as well as some terrific Cuban restaurants and markets.  I can even buy a halfway decent Cuban sandwich at my local supermarket.  But, you know me.  If I can figure out a way to cook something better and cheaper myself at home, I’m going to try it. So, a couple of weeks ago, I set out on a quest to make the perfect Cuban sandwich.

Although its history is a little murky, the Cuban sandwich or “Cubano” is said by some accounts to have most likely originated in Ybor City. The sandwich was a popular lunch food for workers in the cigar factories in the early 1900s. It’s a toasted sandwich filled with ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, and sometimes salami on Cuban bread. While it started out as a common working man’s meal, the Cubano has evolved into a popular menu item enjoyed by all.

I’ve done my research, and an authentic (and fabulous) Cuban sandwich starts with two essential ingredients: really, really great roast pork or “lechon” and real, light-as-air Cuban bread.  I can help you with the pork, but unless you live in Cuba or an area surrounding Miami or Tampa, that bread will be hard to come by.  I’m told that baking your own “pan Cubano” is a hit or miss proposition. I’ve never done it, so I can’t say either way. But, if you’re interested in trying your hand at it, here is a recipe I found that looks pretty good: http://www.tasteofcuba.com/pancubano.html.  And here’s another link to a very informative thread about the bread on The Fresh Loaf:http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2596/cuban-bread. You can still make a very satisfying Cuban sandwich with French or Italian bread, though.  I’ve done it and it works great.

Before I could start making my Cuban sandwiches, I first had to roast some pig.  I picked up a nice hunk of bone-in fresh ham from my favorite butcher and started looking for recipes.  The one I liked best was the Lechon Asado recipe from Three Guys From Miami, who are…well…three Cuban guys from Miami.  They have a great web site with lots of traditional Cuban recipes, and they even have two published cookbooks.

Lechon asado is merely a Cuban-style marinated roast pork.  It is marinated in a “mojo” sauce which is made with onion, oregano, lots and lots of garlic and something called “naranja agria” or bitter/sour orange juice.  Bitter orange juice is the juice of the Seville orange, which is significantly more tart than most other types of oranges.  I found this product in the ethnic foods aisle at the supermarket, but it is also widely available at most Latin markets.

After marinating overnight, the pork is then slow roasted for several hours until incredibly moist and tender.  Just look at this gorgeous, succulent pork!  Let me tell you, people, it doesn’t get much better than this!

While your pork is roasting, you might as well gather up the rest of your sandwich ingredients, because you’ll have a few hours to kill.  For two monster-sized Cubans, you’ll need:

• 1 whole loaf of Cuban bread, sliced lengthwise
• Lots of mayo (A lot of people use mustard, but I’ve got some Cuban friends that swear by mayo and I do too.)
• Several juicy slices of the lechon asado (Don’t worry. You can do lots of other things with the leftovers!)
• Around 1/3 of a pound of good deli ham. (I like to use Virginia ham.)
• A couple of big, fat kosher dill pickles, sliced as thinly as possible
• Around 1/3 of a pound of Swiss cheese.  (Don’t ask me why Cubans use Swiss cheese in their sandwiches. They just do.)
• Some softened or melted butter for slathering on the Cuban bread (During pressing, this will make the bread impossibly crusty and splintery!)
• A panini press or a griddle pan with a really heavy brick covered in aluminum foil to press down the sandwiches

Once all of your ingredients are ready, it’s time to assemble your sandwiches.  Here’s how:

Oooh! Check out that melty, oozey cheese!  Now, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!

¡Ay dios mío! Este sándwich es fantástico!

Stay tuned. Next time, I’ll tell you what I served with these Cubano masterpieces!

Lechon Asado
adapted from Three Guys From Miami

Ingredients:

Mojo Marinade

20 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups sour orange juice (If you can’t get sour orange juice in your area, use two parts orange to one part lemon and one part lime)
1 cup minced onion
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon granulated sugar*
1 1/2 cups Spanish olive oil

1 8-10 pound fresh ham

Directions:

1.  Mash the garlic and salt together with a mortar and pestle. Add dried oregano, onion, sugar and sour orange juice to the mash and mix thoroughly.

2.  Heat oil in small sauce pan, add the mash to the oil and whisk. Make deep cross cuts in the skin of the pork, taking care not to cut into the meat beneath.  Pierce meat as many times as you can with a fork. Pour mojo mixture (save about a cup for roasting) over pork, cover and let sit in refrigerator for 2-3 hours or overnight.

3.  When ready to roast, pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F.  Place the pork fattest side up in an open roasting pan. Place pan in oven and reduce temperature to 325 degrees F. Spoon extra marinade over the roast occasionally as it cooks. Using a meat thermometer, roast should be removed from the oven when the temperature reaches 155 degrees F.  Immediately cover with foil and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing and serving. The roast will continue to cook after you remove it from the heat. A perfectly cooked pork roast will be pale white in the middle and the juices will run clear.

I can’t imagine that there is anyone left in this world that hasn’t heard of the devastating recent events in Haiti.  On January 12, the small Caribbean county was hit by a catastrophic 7.0 earthquake.  By January 24, at least 52 aftershocks measuring 4.5 or greater had been recorded. As of February 12, an estimated three million people were affected by the quake.  The Haitian Government reports that between 217,000 and 230,000 people have been identified as dead, an estimated 300,000 injured, and an estimated 1,000,000 are homeless.  It is also estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings have collapsed or been severely damaged. As you can imagine, the current living conditions in Haiti are deplorable!   In the aftermath, many countries have responded to appeals for humanitarian aid, pledging funds and dispatching rescue and medical teams, engineers and support personnel.  In addition, numerous church groups, charitable organizations and private citizens have stepped in to help as well, including the food blogging community.  Determined not to stand idly by, BloggerAid-Changing the Face of Famine has decided to run an online raffle to raise funds for the relief effort in Haiti.  This relief effort is called H2Ope for Haiti.

H20pe for Haiti was devised as a way for BA-CFF to raise funds to supply much needed water to Haiti through Concern Worldwide. This non-governmental international humanitarian organization founded in 1968 works around the world to reduce suffering and work towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries. Concern Worldwide has been a presence in Haiti since 1994 and had over 100 staff members on the ground when the earthquake struck.  Despite losing several team members in the tragedy, they have been quick to act with distribution of supplies, including 135,000 liters of water per day.

To implement this fundraiser, BA-CFF is running an online raffle, with prizes donated by participating food bloggers (like me).  The money raised will be paid directly into a Justgiving page.  Justgiving is the United Kingdom parent of Firstgiving, the site used in the Menu for Hope events.  Every dollar raised gets paid directly into the charity’s account, to be applied exclusively to the Haiti relief effort as agreed by Concern Worldwide.  Justgiving makes it really easy to donate in that that they accept credit cards, debit cards and Paypal as payment methods.

My raffle item for this fundraiser is a copy of David Chang’s bestselling cookbook, Momofuku (PRIZE CODE: HFH12).  It’s no secret that I have fallen in love with this book.  I’ve written about it here and here.  And now, for the price of a $10.00 raffle ticket, you can have the chance to win one for yourself.  H20pe for Haiti’s list of fabulous raffle prizes and instructions for donating can be found on Jeanne’s site at Cook Sister, and at BA-CFF’s Justgiving page, found at http://www.justgiving.com/h2ope4haiti. I hope you’ll consider participating.

Now, as an added incentive to donate, and because I love you guys, I have another Momofuku dish to share with you.  This one is really going to knock your ever lovin’ socks off because it features pork!  And, not just any old pork either. Nosiree!  I’m talking about a big old hunk of pork butt cooked low and slow for hours and hours, until it’s gorgeously caramelized and falling off the bone tender. I’m talking about the pork in David Chang’s Bo Ssäm!

Bo Ssäm is a popular dish in Korean cuisine in which steamed pork and various accompaniments are wrapped in leafy greens such as lettuce or sesame leaf. The word ssäm literally means “wrapped”.  It is often served with a thick, spicy paste known as ssämjang and several small side dishes or banchan such as kimchi.

In Chang’s version, the pork is coated with a sugar and salt dry rub and roasted low and slow, barbecue-style, for many hours, until it can just be pulled from the bone with a fork.  The rest of his bo ssäm “package” includes his version of ssämjang, raw oysters, Ginger-Scallion Sauce, rice and kimchi. I wasn’t originally convinced about the oysters, but then I read several accounts of how magical they are with the pulled pork. Still, I wasn’t about to deal with shucking fresh oysters in my kitchen. I’m the Accident Prawn, remember?  Oyster shuckers and me are a dangerous combination!

Luckily, I live in Florida, and the one thing I can always find here are freshly shucked oysters, neatly stored in plastic containers.  I figured that was the best way to go.

I didn’t make my own kimchi either. {{{hanging my head in shame}}}.  Instead, I bought some at a local Asian market.  The owner is Korean and she makes several kinds of kimchi fresh from scratch every day.  It is really good, too!  I knew that any kimchi I could whip up wouldn’t be nearly as good as hers, so I took that shortcut too.  The thing is, that by taking little shortcuts like this, a time and labor intensive meal like bo ssäm doesn’t seem so daunting.  Thus, you might be more likely to actually try it at home.  And, while it is always admirable to make each component of every dish yourself, it isn’t always necessary.  I’m not talking Semi-Homemade here.  I’m just saying that outsourcing a few things sometimes isn’t the end of the world.

As far as recipes go, Chang’s pulled pork isn’t difficult at all to prepare.  The hardest part is waiting for the pig to cook.  But, this also gives you lots of time to prepare the side dishes and sauces.  It also gives you lots of time to do the laundry, water your plants, pay some bills or take a little nap. (I skipped right on over to that last one!)  And, I have to tell you, people, that this pork is so very juicy and succulent – utterly amazing!  A total foodgasm if there ever was one!

Presenting, the naked pork:

Here’s what it looked like wearing its salt and sugar rub:

Here it is at the halfway mark:

And, here it is out of the oven and all ready to jump on your plate:

Oh, baby!

And, as if it could possibly get any better, get this.   This whole meal, which feeds at least eight people, cost me about $36.45 to make – including the oysters and the store-bought kimchi!  Can you believe it?  That gorgeous ten pound pork shoulder only set me back $16.50!  Momofuku Ssäm Bar charges $180.00 for this “dining experience”, which rounds out to about $22.50 per person for eight people, not including tax and tip.  I was able to do it for $4.55 per person.  Sure, the ambiance in my dining room probably isn’t as cool as Momofuku’s, but who cares!  The point is that you can create this fabulous feast in your own home for a fraction of what it costs to go out.  My cost was about 20% of what I would have paid at ANY restaurant, which leaves a nice chunk of change left over for Mama to get herself a new pair of shoes!

Trust me, people!  You need this book! Seriously! You do!

Enjoy!

I’ve always considered myself to to be a hip and trendy kind of girl, especially when I was in my twenties.  As you get older, though, it gets a little harder to pull it off.  Still, I try to keep up with the times.  Having a sixteen year old daughter around to keep me informed doesn’t hurt either!

I’m a pretty adventurous “foodie” type person as well, both in restaurants and in my own kitchen.   Never one to shy away from trying new things, I’ve eaten a lot of foods that many would run from. (Although, I do draw the line at bugs and things that are still moving! But, I think you get my drift.)

One recent food trend that I’ve had a hard time wrapping my taste buds around, however, is the gratuitous pairing of bacon with various dessert foods. Don’t get me wrong.  I really like bacon – on a cheeseburger or lying next to some scrambled eggs.  But, bacon cupcakes?  Huh!  How about some bacon ice cream? Um…I don’t think so.   So, while I continued to read rapturous accounts of the love affair among bacon, butter, flour and sugar,  I still remained unmotivated to jump on the crowded bacon desserts bandwagon. Until this past Super Bowl Sunday, that is.

Mr. SGCC and I were invited to a Super Bowl Party, and of course I couldn’t show up empty handed.  I wanted to come up with something that a bunch of beer guzzling, chili eating sports fans would go for.  I also wanted something that wouldn’t drip, run or spill. (All that beer guzzling makes you sloppy.)  I could have just baked some regular old chocolate chip cookies, but anyone could do that.  I’m the Queen of SGCC-Land!  I had to step it up a little. People expect more from me! (Oh, the pressure!)

I was scrambling for ideas, and then I thought, “What about bacon?”.

BACON! In chocolate chip cookies?  Hmmm.  Why not?  It could work.  And, it did.

I found a recipe for Candied Bacon on David Lebovitz’s site that looked like a good place to start. I used thick cut bacon slices, smothered them in brown sugar and baked them until they were all gooey and caramelized.  I could have just slapped that bacon on a plate and stopped there.  It was THAT good!  In fact, I had a hard time keeping Mr. and Mini SGCC from eating the whole batch while I prepared the cookie dough.

(It’s okay. They’re really not burned.)

The original recipe for the cookies, minus the bacon, comes from David’s, Great Book of Chocolate.   It’s one of my favorite recipes for chocolate chips cookies, turning out lovely thin cookies that are perfectly crisp around the edges and nice and chewy in the middle.   I don’t think these would be nearly as successful with a thicker, cakier cookie.  But, that’s just me.

Making these Candied Bacon-Chocolate Chunk Cookies was no more difficult than making any other kind of chocolate chip cookies, which isn’t difficult at all, except that you have to make the candied bacon first.  Here’s how you do it:

Once you have your candied bacon cooled and chopped into bits, you’re ready to make the cookies, themselves.

Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy!  Were these cookies ever good!  I never in a million years thought I would like them so much, but I did.  So did everyone else, too.  They were the perfect combination of smoky/salty/sweet all wrapped up in a neat little package.    The bacon flavor was subtle.  When you took a bite, you knew there was something different and interesting in that cookie, but you just couldn’t quite put your finger on what it was.  The other guests at the party devoured them, and were incredulous when I told them what was in them.

“Bacon?  Are you serious?  No way!” (Yes, way.)

I handed out more cards that day than ever before.  People wanted those cookies!

If you’re still a little leery of using bacon in sweets, don’t be.  It isn’t as scary as it seems.  Just go for it!  Your taste buds will thank you.

I don’t usually cook on Fridays nights.  After a long week of working, cleaning, cooking, blogging, mothering, wife-ing, daughtering and a lot of general running around, I’m pooped!  Sometimes we’ll get take-out. And, sometimes we’ll just go out.  Last Friday night, though, the weather sucked.  It was rainy, foggy and gross.  I decided that going out for dinner was going to be more trouble than it was worth, so I graciously offered to cook so that we could stay warm and dry at home, and save a few bucks in the process.  I’m really considerate that way.   Mr. SGCC was all for it.

I was originally going to make sausage and peppers over pasta.  But, then I remembered the cute little calzone mold that I’d picked up recently, so I decided to make sausage and peppers calzones instead.  I definitely didn’t want to mess with making dough from scratch, so I picked up some refrigerated pizza dough on the way home from my aforementioned running around.

There are lots of different ways to make sausage and peppers.  Some fry the sausage.  Some add tomato sauce.  Not me.  I bake my sausage until it’s almost cooked through, and then I slice it and add it to the peppers to finish.  Doing it this way eliminates a lot of extra grease (Who needs that?), yet still allows the sausage juices to flavor the rest of the dish.  And to me, tomato sauce in sausage and peppers is just plain wrong! 

I must admit, I’d never used sausage and peppers as a filling for calzones before.  I was a little concerned that the filling would be too “wet” and soak through the dough.  But, after draining out as much liquid as possible before I filled the calzones, it worked just fine.

Don’t they look good?

Making sausage and peppers is really easy.  Come on!  I’ll show you…

And, if you use a ready made pizza dough, the calzones are a snap too.  Of course, if you have the time and want to make your dough from scratch, more power to you!  I have better things to do on a Friday night.

These Sausage and Peppers Calzones are perfect for a casual, rainy day meal, but they’d make a great party dish too, (think Super Bowl).  They’re hearty, delicious and self-contained.  We loved them!  I hope you do too.

Enjoy!