Cuban food is AHHH-mazing. If you've never had a Cubano, or cuban sandwich, I suggest you either 1) make one for yourself (it's pretty simple) or 2) find a place that serves them. Have any of you seen the movie, Chef, with Jon Favreau? Great movie, btw. Favreau's character is a big time chef that receives a scathing review for his restaurant, falls into a depression and decides to start a food truck making Cuban food. What I wouldn't give to have been a character in the movie, eating those cubanos. Anyway, I digress. Here's my interpretation, lechon asado (cuban pulled pork), ham, pickle relish, dijon mustard on a crispy tostone (twice fried plantain). Oh. Em. Gee. Delicious.
Mini Cubano Plantain Bites
Ingredients:
For the Tostones
- Green plantain, peeled and sliced
- coconut oil, for frying plantains
For the Lechon Asado
- 2-3 lb bone-in pork shoulder/pork butt
- 5-8 cloves garlic
- 3/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
- 3/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon and lime juice (I juiced, 2 whole limes and 1.5 lemons)
- 1 1/2 tsp cumin
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 1/2 medium (baseball sized) onion, sliced
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
- 1 TBSP salt
- fresh cracked black pepper
Remaining bites
- nitrate free ham
- finely diced bread and butter or sweet dill pickles
- finely diced onions
- dijon mustard
Preparation:
- Pat dry the pork. Using a knife, make 5-8 (depending on amount of garlic used) one inch slits sparingly throughout the meat. Place a clove garlic in each slit.
- Place the garlic stuffed pork is a large ziploc bag. Add the remaining lechon asado ingredients. Marinate the pork at least 6 hours or overnight.
- The following day, remove the pork from the marinade. Place in a slow cooker. Add about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the marinade to the slow cooker pot. Cook on low for 6 hours. Then turn up to high and cook for another 4 hours.
- Remove the pork into a large bowl. Shred. Add a tablespoon of the liquid from the slow cooker pot at a time. I added about 4 to keep it moist and juicy. Store in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to use.
- To make the tostones, cut off the ends of the green plantain. Peel the skin and slice (about 1/2 inch thick). Heat a cast iron skillet with coconut oil over medium high heat. Fry both sides of each plantain slice for approximately 1 minutes. Remove from skillet and using a flat bottomed cup/bowl/or other kitchen tool, smash each plantain slice into a disk. Fry both sides of each smashed plantain disk for another 1 minute or until golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels.
- To assemble, top each tostones with sliced ham, the lechon, finely diced pickles and onions, and a drizzle of dijon mustard.
