Culinary World Tour: Elana Ruz Cuban Sandwiches With Fried Plantains

The world tour finally continues! This time around we decided not to keep going in order but took a detour to head down to Cuba. Before heading into the specifics, be sure to check out our previous stops on the culinary world tour:

Spain: Grilled Paella
England: Yorkshire Pudding
Ireland: Shepherd's Pie
Iceland: Lamb Pie With Rye Crust
Greenland: Suaasat
Canada: Poutine
Mexico: Posole

For the Cuban stop we decided to go with iconic fried plantains and a twist on the classic cubano sandwich: the Elena Ruz.

Rather than picking up bread at the bakery, we went the route of making our own, and let met ell you, this was an aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal day experience.

First we heat up the yeast with water and sugar so it will activate properly.

We're also going to need four beaten eggs to add in shortly.

While the yeast is heating, we'll get our dry ingredients together, using both regular white flour and bread flour.

Once the yeast has puffed up, we're adding in a mixture of beaten eggs and honey.

The yeast mixture is then combined into the dry ingredients in small batches - about 1/5 of the mixture at a time, which is whisked together until incorporated.

Now the real work begins: its time to knead the dough until elastic - 20 solid minutes by hand! This is more difficult than you'd think, and its times like these we wish we had a heavy duty Kitchenaid mixer!

Now its time to play the first waiting game. Oil up the bottom side of plastic wrap to cover the dough in a large pan, and then refrigerate for four hours.

Next we pull the chilled dough out of the fridge and let it rise for two hours.

Now we punch it down and let it rise yet again. We're starting to think we should have done this earlier in the morning!

After all the rising is finally done, we roll out the dough and shape it into small rectangles for the sandwiches.

Here Megan is brushing the shaped dough with melted butter.

15 minutes in the oven, and we've got these amazing looking (and smelling!) sandwich rolls that perfectly pull apart!

We're not done cooking yet though. Now it's time to assemble the sandwiches. For an Elana Ruz Cuban, we're using thick turkey, cream cheese, and strawberry preserves.

Once it's all assembled, we top it with melted butter again and cook it on the skillet - but to make it a true Cuban, be sure to place a heavy cast iron skillet on top to press it down and cook the top.

Don't forget about our side - fried plantains! If you haven't had these before, don't try eating them straight up: they're gross! But when you cook 'em up proper, they become a thing of beauty.

After the insane peeling process (trust me, a knife is required), we pull off thin strips of plantain by using a vegetable peeler. We're going to fry them up in a skillet with about a half inch of hot oil.

Toss a little salt on your fried plantains and it's time to dig in!