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A long time ago I had a job that took me to Palm Beach. The guy I was working with took me over to a hole in the wall sandwich shop on US1 and bought us Cuban sandwiches. It is one of those moments that stuck in my head. The salty pork products, the creamy melted cheese, sour pickles, crispy bread, and a smack in the face of yellow mustard. I love when a deceptively small set of ingredients can be put together to create something really complex.

That was the first thing I thought of when staring down a half pound of leftover pork tenderloin. Since I didn’t have any ham, I just used the tenderloin. I also didn’t have cuban rolls so I used sourdough bread. I don’t think the sandwich suffered …

Equipment

Ingredients

  • Leftover pork tenderloin
  • Swiss cheese
  • Yellow mustard Has to be yellow. Dijon, stone ground, those are great in other recipes but they don’t work here.
  • Dill pickles, preferably the round kind cut in circles with little ridges that look like potato chips although there are also very long sliced pickles that I’ve used that also work well.
  • 2 slices of sourdough bread
  • Butter

NOTE: This is an awesome way to dispose of that one piece of cheese left over from a party. I’ve swapped out the Swiss for goat brie, Mt. Tam from Cowgirl Creamery, Havarti, Fontina I had from a pizza experiment, … any cheese that will melt will work.

Time: about 10 minutes

Yield: 1 portion

Instructions:

  1. Set the sandwich press to high
  2. Smear both pieces of bread with mustard
  3. Slice the pork 1-2 millimeter thick rounds and cover your piece of bread in a layer of tenderloin
  4. Next add a layer of pickles
  5. Add a layer of cheese.
  6. Put the other slice of bread on top
  7. Slice 6 pats of butter
  8. Flip the sandwich over so that the cheese layer will melt down into everything else and put 3 pats of butter on the bread
  9. When the sandwich press is ready, put the sandwich in with the butter down.
  10. Put the other three pats of butter on top of the sandwich.
  11. Close the press and wait until it’s cooked.
  12. This is a really, really good sandwich with a nice saison.