Cuban Braised Pork

Delicioso en Serio!



The bread was hot, greasy with butter, and smelled fresh baked -- as indeed, it was, having been pulled out of the oven only an hour earlier. It cracked loudly when I bit into it and my taste buds were assaulted with sweet, sour, savor, and salt, accounting for all but one of the five tastes. Filled with roast pork, ham, Jarlsberg, Kosher dill pickles, and a good coat of brown mustard, the flavors were intense and complex. This wasn't simple assault, it was aggravated culinary assault and battery. This was my first taste of the famous Cuban Sandwich.

This sandwich is sold throughout Miami where it is as much a fabric of the culture as sausages are in Chicago and Po' Boys in New Orleans. It's a sandwich I've long wanted to try (and I still need to try in its native element) but when Marianne over at The Unemployed Chef posted a recipe last week I decided it was time to make one.

I followed Marianne's recipe

for the bread (marvelous stuff) and the sandwich -- with the exception that she didn't have any roast pork. It was the pork that had interested me in the sandwich and so I set out create this element.

When I started researching the dish I found that the pork was more often braised than roasted. Given that the usual cut called for was the shoulder (Boston Butt) this made sense as that can be a tough cut of meat unless cooked low and slow. The common theme was a long marinade in citrus juices -- in one case the recipe called for 36 hours of marinating.

The only point where I varied significantly from the recipes I read was I decided to add rum to the marinade. Some sort of wine is common in marinades and a number of recipes called for white wine or sherry, but Cuba isn't exactly famous for its fruit of the vine. However, it is famous for its juice of the canes and I happen to like cooking with rum. So here's what I came up with:

Cuban Braised Pork Shoulder

3 - 4 lb pork shoulder (I found a 3 lb boneless shoulder)
1/2 c orange juice
1/4 c lemon juice
1/4 c lime juice
1/3 c dark rum
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cumin
12 - 15 ea black peppercorns -- cracked
3 cloves garlic, lg -- crushed

Combine all ingredients in a zip lock bag and shake to mix. Marinate 24 hours, occasionally turning to make sure all sides of the meat are treated.

Heat oven to 325F. Place roast in a dutch oven and add marinade. Cover and cook for three hours, turning once or twice. If liquid gets too low, add some water.

When done, place on a cutting board, tent with foil, and allow to rest for 15 minutes before carving.

The night I made the roast I simply had a couple of slices it with some sautéed fresh spinach and buttered new potatoes. The next day I baked the bread and made the sandwich using thin slices of pork -- which I could cut now that the roast was cold.

Delicioso en serio!

Technorati: Food | recipe | main+dish | pork | cuban | marinade