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!

Novel Noodles: Homemade Pasta Two Ways

With our focus on homemade meals and conquering new culinary territory, it was only a matter of time before we ditched box pasta and started making our own.

Done by hand, making pasta at home can be quite frustrating, but with a couple of tools like a mechanical pasta cutter and a drying rack, this becomes a fun way to put together incredible meals.

We've done quite a few pasta sauces over time at Six-Seven-Eight like roasted red pepper sauce, oven roasted fresh tomato sauce, homemade pestos, and the almost sauceless lemon zest and kale pasta. Today we'll cover two more ways to prepare pasta into meals that will make you forget all about restaurant dinners.

There are myriad pasta recipes out there from the very basic to the very complex, and we've found that in most cases simpler is better. For these recipes, our pasta will consist only of:

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup Semolina flour
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. olive oil

To get started, make a well out of the white flour, and then pour the semolina in the middle.

Crack your eggs and pour them in the well along with the oil, and then begin the process of folding it all together by hand until it becomes more firm.

Hand kneading pasta takes a significant amount of effort - a full 10 minutes of kneading is more tiring than you'd think - but there is a possible shortcut if you've got the right kitchen equipment. Most bread machines have a pasta setting, taking care of all the work for you!

Once you've got a solid ball of pasta, roll it up tightly in plastic wrap and let sit for half an hour. Sprinkle some extra flour on the workspace as you'll need it to keep the pasta from getting too sticky.

Slice off about a fifth of the pasta dough and flatten it with your hands in the extra flour.

Here we're going to start rolling out the pasta with our pasta machine. Start at the thickest setting and work your way down to your desired thickness. After rolling it through once, fold the length of pasta in half and then roll it through again at the same setting. Repeat that process at each thinner setting.

Cutting pasta into similar shapes by hand is more effort than its worth, so we're going to run our flattened dough through the linguine attachment for perfect strands of delicious noodles!

Fresh pasta will frequently stick together and become a clump - which you don't want! So either store your pasta on a drying rack like this one, or pour a cup of flour on a cookie sheet, toss the pasta in, and quickly separate each strand by hand so it can sit before cooking.

For our first pasta meal, we're going to use a very basic recipe - canned tomatoes, garlic powder, basil, basil infused olive oil (we got some of these great tasty oils as a Christmas gift and they are fantastic!), sugar, and balsamic vinegar. Mix it all together in a blender or food processor.

Pour your sauce in a pan, bring to a boil, then cover and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes to an hour. This time around we're using whole tomatoes instead of diced, with gives a thicker texture, but also requires adding more sugar, as the addition of tomato seeds will give a more bitter flavor as the sauce simmers down.

To make this more of a full meal without a side, we're going to add in our ground pork and bacon meatballs, but of course the delicious cheese stuffed version works just fine too!

Fresh pasta cooks much, much faster than the store-bought variety, so that gets thrown in a pot of boiling water last, taking only about 4 - 5 minutes.

Toss it all together and get ready for a taste of Italy far better than what you'd get at most sit-down restaurants!

Don't forget some extra Parmesan and pepper on top!

Next up we're going to go a very different direction by making a hearty, down home potluck favorite: chicken and noodles! For this one-pot meal you'll need:

• 2 bone-in chicken breasts (for serving a large group, use a whole chicken)
• ½ white onion, chopped
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 2 -3 stalks celery, chopped
• 3 cups water
• 1 container chicken soup base, bouillon, or stock
• ½ cup chopped mushrooms
• ½ lb – 1 lb homemade pasta
• 1 can evaporated milk
• salt and pepper to taste

The chicken here serves two purposes: its going to flavor the meal by acting as a stock, and we're going to shred the meat. To get the meat tender enough, boil the chicken in water along with the onion, carrot, and celery.

About an hour later, remove the chicken from the water and discard the skin and bones.

Shred the chicken meat by gently pulling it apart - just dig in two forks and pull them opposite directions. The meat should easily come apart.

Lower the temperature, toss the chicken meat back into the water, and add in the mushrooms. At this point the flavor should already essentially be at chicken stock level, but if you find the taste isn't strong enough you could mix in some extra store-bought chicken stock or bouillon.

We're almost done, so it's time to throw in the noodles! Big thick, long noodles work great here to make this more hearty.

We want to further thicken up the meal so its less of a soup and make it more creamy, so add in some evaporated milk and continue cooking. If it doesn't thicken up enough, mix together a little water and cornstarch and stir in the mixture.

Here's a big simmering pot of finished chicken and noodles waiting to be devoured. Guaranteed to be eaten up if you take this to a pot luck or dinner party!

Chile Colorado

Although not actually part of our culinary world tour, we love making cuisine from different cultures, especially with Mexican and Spanish influenced foods.

We've seen lots of crock pot and slow cooker recipes for Chile Colorado - and tried out a few - but they don't turn out as well when you actually go through the full process. The taste difference, as we discovered, is huge, and it's leagues ahead of just using canned red enchilada sauce.

For really stellar Chile Colorado, you want to go as authentic as possible, so instead of using canned peppers with sauce, hit up a local market or the Hispanic section of the grocery store and look for a bag of dried chiles. We found a bag for $5 that had about 40 gigantic dried chiles, so it will keep us stocked up for some time.

For our recipe, instead of the traditional beef, we're used pork stew meat, which has a different texture and flavor. For Chile Colorado, you'll need:

• Olive Oil
• 1 White Onion
• 1 cup Chicken Stock
• Garlic
• 8 - 10 Dried Chiles
• 1 pound Diced Pork
• 2 tbsp. Vinegar
• Cumin
• Pepper
• Oregano

First thing's first: strap on some gloves and get to de-seeding those chiles. We went with all the seeds removed, but if you want more heat, you could leave in about 1/4 - 1/2 the seeds from one chile. For something really, really hot, leave in the seeds of one or more full chiles. After cleaning them out, we're going to set them in a bowl, as they need to be reconstituted before being used.

Here Megan is pouring boiling water into the bowl - enough to cover the chiles - and then covering it with plastic wrap.

The chiles sit covered for a half hour to soak up the moisture. Afterwards, drain out the water and mix the chiles together with the stock in a blender or food processor until you have a thick puree.

Meanwhile, we'll start cooking the diced pork, onion, and garlic with all the seasonings in a separate pan.

While the meat and vegetables are cooking, we're going to push the chile and stock mixture through strainer repeatedly. Unless you have really big strainer and bowl, you'll probably have to do this in small batches. Yes, it's a lot of work, but it's also well worth the effort.

After staining all the pulpy mixture, you'll be left with this smooth liquid that's a very pretty shade of red and almost ready to go.

Next we add in the vinegar and any remaining seasonings you want, then we mix together the chile sauce with the pork and onions.

Mix thoroughly and simmer over a low heat for another 30 minutes or so until the flavors mingle.

Now we're finally ready to go! I wanted mine in a tortilla, so I've spooned some cooked rice in first, followed by some big spoonfuls of the Chile Colorado.

Top it with cheese, wrap it up, and its ready to go! You could add sour cream, but this is already so flavorful on its own that its really not necessary, and since we left out the seeds, it's the perfect balance of flavor and heat.

You don't have to make it into a taco though, as here Megan put some Chile Colorado in a bowl with rice and tortilla chips.