#64 - Open-Faced Cuban Sandwich Sliders

Cuban sandwiches are tasty pork, ham, cheese, mustard and pickle sandwiches. Open-faced sandwiches are sandwiches with only one piece of bread. Sliders are miniature versions of normal-sized sandwiches. Put it all together, and you get this amazing little treat.

Open-Faced Cuban Sandwich Sliders

From Peppi and Kristen Limarzi Since these are Cubans, you need the usual ingredients - pork tenderloin, ham, mustard, mayo, and pickles. The cheese is Muenster, and for the bread, we're using a French baguette. We've had these mini-sandwiches a bunch of times before at cookouts at Pep's or Nonno's house, but we've never cooked them ourselves. You can cook the pork outside on a grill, but it's easier to cook it consistently by searing it on the stove, and then putting it in the oven. After it's rested, you cut the pork, and start layering up the baguette slices. These are pretty tasty little sandwiches, but we already knew that. What we didn't know was that for all the different components, they aren't that difficult to make. And having never cooked pork tenderloin before, that stuff is delicious on its own. With the sandwich - extra delicious.

You can eat these sliders as an appetizer or as one of several tapas at a barbecue or, as we did tonight, as a main course on their own. You just need to eat a few of them. These are good. Make them if you like pork.

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup mayonnaise
• 3 Tbs Dijon mustard
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 pork tenderloin, about 2 lbs
• 2 Tbs canola oil
• 1 baguette
• Olive oil
• 1/4 lb sliced black forest ham
• 1/4 lb sliced Muenster cheese
• Whole kosher dill pickles, sliced

Preparation

1. In a small bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and garlic, and season with salt and pepper.
2. Refrigerate sauce for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 425.
4. Heat the canola oil in a medium-sized oven-proof pan over high heat.
5. Season pork tenderloin with salt and pepper.
6. Cook meat until golden brown on each side, turning every 2 minutes for all four sides.
7. Put the whole pan in the oven and cook for 15 minutes until the internal temperature reaches 150 degrees.
8. Place meat on a cutting board and tent with foil for 10 minutes.
9. Cut the baguette into slices.
10. Put bread on a baking sheet and brush top side with olive oil.
11. Toast bread in the oven for about 5 minutes, making sure not to burn.
12. Turn oven on to broiler.
13. Layer pork, ham slice, and cheese slice on bread and broil until cheese melts.
14. Spoon some sauce onto sliders and top with a pickle slice.