Here we go again! Cuban Pork Roast

I went to my local supermarket to buy a pork shoulder, and there weren't any. I asked the butcher. "Do you have pork shoulders?" "All our pork shoulders are hams," he answered.

Pork butts it is! They are marinating to go into the oven on Saturday morning.

For these 2 pork butts I used:

1 head of  garlic pressed
1 head of garlic, cloves peeled and sliced in half
the juice of 4 oranges
the juice of 4 limes

approximately
2-3 tbsp salt
1-2 tbsp rosemary (chopped or pressed)
1 tbsp oregano
pepper


Please click here to see cooking instructions and helpful comments from a previous post and check back on Saturday to see how these turned out.

Glazed Pork Steaks in Wine Sauce

These pork steaks turned very juicy and tender, oh and tasty too!


4 pork steaks
2 cloves garlic, crushed
3/4 cups sherry
1 cup beef stock (or 1 cup water and one beef bullion cube)
1 bay leaf
dash of paprika (optional)
olive oil
salt and pepper

Heata heavy pot/pan coated with olive oil. Add your crushed garlic, let the garlic cook for a minute or so and add your pork steaks. Let them brown a bit and add all other ingredients. Cover and let simmer for an hour or more. Check for tenderness, adjust seasoning. Remove lid and increase heat if necessary until the liquid reduces.

Arroz con Puerco y Chorizo

This is just another one of those variations on yellow rice. I had a couple of pork chops in the freezer and a Spanish chorizo in the pantry, and 6 people to feed. With a side salad and some bread, dinner for six.

1 large yellow onion or medium red onion
6 cloves garlic, pressed
2 pork chops, diced
1 Spanish chorizo, diced
2 cups long grain rice
4 1/2 cups water
dash of Bijol (annato for coloring)
chicken flavor bouillon (optional)
salt to taste (if necessary)
olive oil

Spanish chorizo has a lot of flavor so it is not necessary to use many spices for this.

Sautee your onion and garlic in olive oil, add your pork and chorizo, sautee a bit. Add a cup of water and simmer until the pork is fully cooked and tender (about 30 minutes). Add 3 1/2 cups water, your bouillon (optional) and bring to a boil. Add the 2 cups of rice, stir, cover and reduce heat to low. Check in 15 minutes, stir. Add water if needed.

Fried Breaded Pork Chops

I bought a new computer and have been fooling around with iMovie. Let me know what you think of the little video.

3 Bone-in Pork Chops
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 cup lime juice
juice of 1/2 orange
1 egg
seasoned bread crumbs
oil for frying

If your pork chops are thick as mine were, you should pound them to flatten a bit. Cover with plastic wrap and go at it. Prepare your marinade with the garlic, salt, rosemary, lime juice and orange juice. Pour over pork chops and refrigerate for about an hour. After the hour has passed beat an egg in one bowl and pour bread crumbs into another. Pass your pork chop through the egg coating both sides and then coat both side of the pork chop with the bread crumbs. Repeat this process. Heat about 2 inches of vegetable oil in a frying pan ad drop in your pork chops. Let brown on one side then flip and brown on the other. If they are browning too quickly turn down the heat. If your chops are thin enough they should cook within about 10 minutes. If the chops are very thick you may have to finish them off in the oven. (I always have a hard time judging the doneness of fried food... so I cheat. I pull one out and cut down the middle to check.)

Cuban Style Pork Butt Steaks

The Cuban ladies of my mother's and grandmother's generation used their ovens for storage. The larger the oven the more they could store in there: pots, pans, utensils, rolls of aluminum foil, etc, and of course it was (is) the perfect place to ripen your plantains. Growing up, baking and roasting was not a usual occurrence in our household; after all, who would want to pull all that stuff out just to roast a chicken or bake a cake—and where would we put it all? With the exception of holidays or special occasions the oven stayed turned off and everything was prepared on the stove top.

I bought a 4 1/2 lb sliced pork butt the other day. I wasn't sure what to do with it. It was sliced into steaks and I've never really made pork butt steaks... didn't know whether to treat it like pork chops or pork shoulder. I did some research and found that this cut of pork needs to be cooked for quite a while to tenderize. I had a bit of running around to do, so I couldn't afford to have it sit on the stove top nor the oven so I took out the crock pot!

4 1/2 lbs pork butt steaks
1/2 green or red bell pepper (mine were frozen)
1 onion, sliced


For the mojo:

1/2 head of garlic, pressed
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon oregano
1/2 tablesppon ground cumin
2 cups sour orange or (1c sweet orange + 1c lime juice)

Prepare a mojo with the above ingredients and let marinate over night. The next place your onions and peppers on the bottom of the crock pot and layer your pork steaks on top. Put the lid on it and set it on low for 6 to 8 hours or on high for 4 hours. That's it. The bones literally fell off. Serve with white rice, black beans and fried plantains.

Pork Chops in Wine Sauce

I was really hungry last night, and I figured a pork chop wouldn't kill me. I remembered that many years ago I would make pork chops in wine sauce, but I couldn't remember the recipe exactly, and I knew that I used to bread them first. Seemed fattening, so I opted to google a healthier recipe. I found this one which I adjusted since it called for butter (a no, no) and other spices that I did not have at hand. This is how I prepared them, and I can say they turned out quite tasty.

1 teaspoon crushed dried rosemary
2 cloves garlic, pressed or finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper
2 pork chops
olive oil
3/4 cup white wine

Combine rosemary, garlic, salt and pepper. Press around both sides of pork chops. Heat a skillet coated with olive oil. Brown the pork chops on both sides and remove them. Add white wine to the pan juices, bring to a boil while stirring. Return the pork chops to the pan, and cover. Reduce the heat and simmer until tender, about 25 to 30 minutes. Uncover the skillet and turn the heat up for a couple of minutes to reduce the pan juices. Serve with your choice of side dish.

Masitas de Puerco: Fried Pork Chunks

I took this recipe from Epicurian. com. I only had a little over a pound of pork loin so I halved it. The proportions and instruction according to the site are as follows: (my notes are in blue)

Ingredients:
2-1/2 lb. fresh pork loin
12 garlic cloves peeled and crushed
1 large onion chopped
1/2 cup sour orange juice (or 1/4 cup unsweetened orange juice & 1/4 cup lime juice)
2 cups water
1 cup pure Spanish olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 fresh onion sliced into rings
lime wedges
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon cumin

Directions:
Cut pork into 2 inch chunks. To prepare marinade: mix together garlic, chopped onion, orange juice, 1/2 cup olive oil, oregano, cumin and salt. Pour over pork chunks and marinate for at least 3 hours or overnight in the refrigerator.

Remove meat from marinade.  Place in pot with two cups of water and 1/2 cup olive oil. (I did not remove the meat from the marinade; I placed all of it in the pot) Simmer, uncovered until all water boils away -- about 30 to 45 minutes. (The pork became very tender during this process.) Brown the pork in the oil until crispy on the outside. Add onion slices and saute briefly. Garnish with lime wedges. (I skipped these last two directions since I placed the pork in the pot with the chopped onions from the marinade and it already had lime juice).

Tip from Maria: If in the end your masitas are pale in color, you can quick-fry them in a non-stick skillet with some olive oil on high (for a couple of minutes).

Carne Fria

I think by now, those of you who have been following this blog are aware that I am learning as I go. Oh yes I've been cooking Cuban food for many years and there are some dishes that I have mastered, but a handful of recipes isn't enough to fill a blog, so I have to venture into unchartered waters. I have never made carne fria before. I remember standing next to my grandmother in the kitchen watching her prepare this dish, so I'm not unfamiliar with it, I've just never made it.  This is a cold meat loaf this is usually served at parties along with crackers.  I encourage comments that may point out something that I may have missed or a better or simpler process for preparing carne fria. So here we go on another adventure.

I'm not exactly sure that I had exactly these propotions, but these are the ingredients I used. The easiest way to prepare this dish with is with a food processor, if you don't have one, chop everything very finely. You will need:

cheesecloth

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground pork
1/2 lb ground ham
4 cloves garlic
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp worchestershire sauce
1 medium sized onion
queen sized pimento stuffed olives (optional)

4 eggs well beaten
1 1/2 cups cracker crumbs

For the water
4 garlic cloves, whole
1 onion, cut into 4
1 bay leaf
2 tsps salt
1 tsp oregano

Grind your pork and ham in a food processor if you bought it whole. You can drop in your onion and galic in the food processor as well. Take off your rings, this gets messy: in a large bowl combine your ground beef, pork and ham along with the onion, garlic, cumin, salt, worchestershire suace, bread crumbs and eggs.

In the meantime, in a large pot bring approximately 4 quarts of water to a boil with the garlic, onion bay leaf, salt and oregano.

Separate your meat mixture in three and shape into a flattened square. Lay out our olives in a row in the center horizontally and bring the meat up from the side to form a cylinder. Double wrap with in cheesecloth and tie the ends with twine. Repeat this for the other two rolls and drop them in the boiling water. Cover and reduce the heat to simmer for two hours. Add more water as needed.

After the allocated time has passed take the loaves out of the water and remove the cheesecloth. Wrap each roll in aluminum foil. Let cool then refrigerate for at least 24 hours. Slice and serve with crackers or bread  – goes well with a cold beer.

Preparing a Cuban Pork Shoulder Roast

I decided to make a pork shoulder for Mother's Day along with black beans and white rice. I like to marinate my pork shoulder for at least 24 hours. This is how I prepare it.
one 9 lb pork shoulder
8 cloves garlic pressed
8 cloves garlic peeled and sliced in half
2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp rosemary (chopped or pressed)
1 tbsp oregano
1 cup lime juice
1 cup orange juice
pepper

Remove your pork shoulder from the packaging and rinse it under cold water. Stab it (yes, stab it) with a small knife several times in different spots inserting a piece of garlic as you go (push the garlic in as far as you can).
Prepare the marinade (mojo): in a bowl,  pour the lime juice and orange juice, add your pressed garlic, oregano, rosemary and tablespoon salt. Pour this over the pork shoulder and rub the spices into the meat, sprinkle more salt and pepper all over. Cover and refrigerate until the next day.
The next day place your pork shoulder covered with aluminum foil in a pre-heated 350 degree oven. Roast for 5 to 6 hours until fall-off-the-bone tender.

What's for Lunch: Cuban Sandwich

Most Cuban-Americans have at least one parent or grandparent who worked at some point or another in the "factoria." In our household it was my mother who took the bus at dawn every morning to the sewing factory. On a good day, she could pack a lunch with a leftover slice of Cuban sandwich.


A Cuban comes home from the "factoria" with a big smile on his face. His wife asks in spanish:
—How was your day?
—The boss told me I was sizzling!
—What words did he use? 
—You're fired!

Un Cubano llega a la casa sonriente después de trabajar todo el dia en la "factoria." La señora le pregunta:
—¿Como te fue? 
—Estoy muy orgulloso porque hoy el jefe me dijo que yo era la candela.
—¿Como te dijo?
—You're fired!

Soon after arriving in this country, the children were pulled front and center to translate. To our parents our second grade English was better than no English at all, but at seven years old, we barely had a grasp of our native Spanish! Ahh the frustration, the misinterpretation, the incomprehension, the futile attempts at communication. But alas, we had our Cuban Sandwich and we ate it too!

Ingredients:

Cuban bread (yeah right, like we'd find Cuban bread in the middle of nowhere, we'll substitute with a French bread -NOT a baquette- or as in this picture home baked from a frozen bread dough)
Roast Pork (I made a Hormel boneless pork roast - onion and garlic flavor - threw it into a crock pot until done)
Sweet Ham, thick sliced
Swiss cheese
Dill pickles
Yellow mustard (optional)
Butter

To prepare the sandwich slice the bread horizontally and spread butter on both inside halves. Lay the pickles on the bottom half followed by a layer of roast pork, then ham and swiss cheese. You can spread mustard on the inside top half.  Close the sandwich, spread a little butter on the top and place it on a Panini press (okay, I know you don't have one, but I bet you have a George Foreman grill which works the same, if not then place the sandwich on a hot (not too hot) lightly greased frying pan. Place a heavy iron skillet on top of the sandwich to flatten.) The sandwich should be compressed to about 1/3 its original height.

Grill the sandwiches, until the cheese is melted and the bread is golden. Slice the sandwich in half diagonally and serve.