Miami Burger

Cuban Style Burger

Sometimes I wonder if everyone has his or her own culinary pet peeve, I know I do. You hear it all the time; New Yorkers have a lot to say about their pizza. Chicagoans are passionate about their hot dogs and Philadelphians are crazy about their cheesesteaks. Well, I feel the same about the Cuban sandwich. Growing up in Miami, I know my Cuban sandwiches and for years I watched celebrity chefs make “authentic” Cuban sandwiches. It makes me want to scream at the television, “you can’t add mayo!”, “you don’t use one slice of ham!”, “you can’t use a baguette!”.   I know it’s silly, and not everyone has access to authentic Cuban food or in many instances the ingredients may not be regionally available. It shouldn’t matter to me how someone enjoys their sandwich or what they name their recipes, but it does.

This is what lead us to this week’s recipe. We went searching for Cuban sandwich recipes and came across Bobby Flays, Pressed Cuban Style Burger. First, how can you go wrong with a Flay burger? Second, from the ingredient list alone we knew we could make a more authentic Cuban style burger. Off we went to the Let’s Cook That Kitchen to see if our interpretation would hold up against Mr. Flay’s.

We started with the Cuban style burger recipe which calls for roasting garlic. While roasting we went ahead and started making our patties. The patties were done, and all the other ingredients were prepped within a few minutes and we were left waiting for the garlic to finish roasting. This gave us plenty of time to figure out how to press the sandwiches without a Panini press. Although, we had plenty of time to go buy one, we devised a plan to use stove top griddle and a heavy cast iron pan as our press. Genius!

When the garlic was almost ready, we went ahead and seasoned the patties with a little salt and pepper just before laying them in the pan. We were expecting some Cuban seasonings but went ahead and followed the recipe. As the patties sizzled away, we added the garlic to the mayonnaise and applied them to the buns along with the mustard, cheese, ham, pickles and finally the patty.  We wrapped the assembled burgers in aluminum foil and pressed them on our “sandwich press”.

We thought wrapping them up like this was a great idea and would help hold the burgers together. It was a little disappointing when we discovered that this let the bread get a little soggy and parts were sticking to the foil, but it still looked good enough to eat. The burger was perfectly seasoned, the cheeses melted wonderfully and all the flavors came together the way you would expect a Flay burger would. The only thing was it didn’t taste like a Cuban sandwich; it was more of a ham and Swiss burger.

Ratings:

Pressed Cuban Style Burger

Maybe it’s just be me and my pet peeve comparing it to an authentic Cuban sandwich but we wanted to try to get it as close as possible to the real thing. So it’s time for W.W.L.C.T.D.

 

 

Let me start with what we felt was not “authentic” in Bobby’s recipe. First, it used hamburger buns, we wanted to use Cuban bread which is authentic as it gets. I know Cuban bread is not available everywhere and honestly it is almost impossible to substitute. We thought a lot about this and think the closest you can use an Italian hoagie roll once pressed and toasted it will be in the ballpark. Bobby also used a think sliced smoked ham. Cuban sandwiches are made with a thick cut sweet ham, so we are going in that direction. The traditional sandwich has roasted pork and to bring in the authenticity we decided to make a pork patty with some Cuban seasonings. Lastly, the mustard is always yellow, and mayo is never used in a Cuban sandwich. This is what we came up with:

L.C.T. Cuban Style Burger

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground dark meat pork (shoulder)

1/3 lb of pork fat

2 tbsp of minced garlic

3 tbsp olive oil

1/8 cup of lime juice

1/8 cup of sour orange juice (you can substitute with lemon)

8 slices of thick cut sweet ham

8 slices of thick cut Swiss cheese

yellow mustard

8 Dill pickle slices

4 tbsp butter

1 loaf of Cuban bread

Instructions:

In a small sauce pan, over low heat, add olive oil and garlic. Be careful not to over heat the garlic, because it can easily burn. You want the garlic to be infused into the olive oil slowly for 7 minutes. Once infused, remove from the heat and add lime, sour orange, add salt and pepper to taste.  Set aside and cool for the patty preparation. Combine ground pork and ground pork fat and pour in garlic oil (mojo) and fold in to meat mixture. Try not to over mix. Separate in four equal sized patties and season with salt and pepper.

Cook patties on a sauté pan for about 3 to 4 minutes on each side. You do not want to over cook the patties since we are using pork you don’t want to dry them out. Meanwhile cut four slices of the Cuban bread lengthwise just about the size of the burgers and cut it half. Cut two slices of cheese and two slices of ham about the same size as the bread. Add the mustard and pickle to the top half of the bread and then add the cheese and ham. When patties are ready, place them on the bottom part of the bread.

Using the griddle place the top half of the bread with ham facing down directly on the griddle. This is a thick sandwich and placing it on the grill like this ensures that the ham is heated up and helps the cheese melt properly. Butter the top half of the bread and add a little more butter on a clear section of the griddle and place the bottom half of the bread to toast. Make sure the griddle doesn’t get too hot, you don’t want the bread to burn but slowly toast, the same with the ham you want it to heat up slowly allowing the ham to heat up.

Once the cheese starts to melt, add the top half over the patty and flip the entire sandwich over. Place the cast iron skillet over the sandwich, lightly and evenly pressing down on the pan. This will allow the top half of the sandwich to toast and press your burger together.  As soon it’s a golden color remove from heat cut and serve.

One thing for sure, our burger was much more authentic and tasted as close as a burger can get to a Cuban sandwich. The buttery crunch from the Cuban bread as the melted Swiss cheese oozes together with the other ingredients will make you think you were in Little Havana. Let us know what you think…