How to make this cafe’s signature Puerto Rican roasted pork and cubano sandwich

Milena Pagán has always been passionate about cooking and baking, especially to express creativity and connect with other people.

“It took me a long time to appreciate the complexity, beauty and uniqueness of the Puerto Rican cuisine I grew up with,” Pagán told Good Morning America. “But now I’m there and I’m very proud to present this melting pot cuisine that has evolved from our painful colonial history.”

Her success as the Little Sister — an all-day cafe that serves breakfast pastries, brunch, and lunch and presents a multi-course tasting menu paired with natural wines in the evenings — has brought a taste of Puerto Rican cuisine to Providence, Rhode Island.

“When I first came up with this idea, I didn’t want it to have a Puerto Rican element. I just felt like people wouldn’t care or be confused,” said Pagán. After being urged by a friend that it could make her food ‘take off’ in the Northeast with more Italian and European influences, Pagan found solace in improving the food she knows best.

“Puerto Ricans are used to seeing Puerto Rican food presented and they like it in a very homely, very unassuming way, not really in the same way that you see fine-dining Korean food or fine-dining Mexican food now,” she said about their approach to the menu. “Instead of ham, I’ll offer you a ham croquette, or instead of Smucker’s strawberry jam, I’ll give you a mango and passion fruit jam that I made in-house — we make changes that, taken together, feel genuinely different and unique.”

She continued, “This food is authentic to my experience, meaning I’ve lived half my life in Puerto Rico and half my life in America and I love to travel all over the world so I just add everything.” together, and in that sense it’s very authentic.”

In light of the recent devastation in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Fiona, Pagán has used her restaurant’s platform to help with relief efforts by local organizations in the U.S. Territory like Casa Pueblo and Taller Salud.

“Anything we can do now to showcase Puerto Rican culture and food in America feels like earning points for my home country on the global scoreboard,” Pagán wrote on Instagram, adding, “We want to.” do more of it.”

Pagán first moved to Rhode Island for a consulting job after earning a chemical engineering degree from MIT, but eventually felt the company’s burnout and realized her career path should lead to something culinary.

“I thought back to what I wanted to do when I was younger,” she recalls. “I’ve always enjoyed cooking, I have a lot of memories of being a kid and being in the kitchen and I’m good at it. So I started baking at home and made that my first business.”

Within 12 months of baking at home and pursuing pop-up opportunities, Pagán opened her first brick and mortar store, Rebelle Artisan Bagels.

“In 2019 I started making plans for Little Sister and we opened in the summer of 2020,” she said of the Bootstrap project. “Because this was born in the pandemic, we designed it to have a lot of flexibility and that even depends on staffing. I think what has helped hold it together is that me and my husband work together and we live close by so we can give it a very high level of attention. We emphasize a fairly collaborative environment and try to give the team a lot of autonomy. Once I trust them to maintain the structure of the kitchen, then I’m like, ‘OK, can you come up with a pastry special with what we have in the fridge?'”

Regarding the impact of supply chain or product shortages, Pagán said, “Puerto Rican culture is very imaginative — we’re used to liking scarcity — so I’m not bothered by that.” “Inflation,” on the other hand, “definitely matters because the Ingredient costs are going up and I can label the menu accordingly, but it takes time for people to get used to it in any way. So we’re using the lunch specials to try new ideas that we can be more affordable to produce.”

As a result, Pagán has created “many more vegetarian options that allow me to happily give people a good portion of food and keep costs down.” She’s also focused on creating new lunch dishes that redefine rice-based dishes .

“In Puerto Rico, like every day, they eat rice for lunch and dinner—there are a million ways to eat rice. So every week we pick a different dish that’s centered around rice — it’s a really cool way to introduce people to Puerto Rican cuisine,” Pagán said, adding that she polls customers on Instagram a few days in advance to come up with new dishes to find.

A star dish that has become a staple on the menu is Pagáns Pernil. Traditional roast pork can be used in a variety of ways to create a hearty, money-saving meal — whether it’s served with rice, beans and plantains, or sliced ​​and made into a Cubano sandwich.

“Puerto Ricans also enjoy pork in all its forms, with many of our dishes using the finest cuts like the shoulder for pernil, as well as more imaginative uses like black pudding,” she said.

“Making Pernil at home is easier than it seems, and it will impress your guests at home,” Pagán said. “Pernil is both an everyday pork dish and a centerpiece on the Christmas table when families gather to cook a whole roast pork. This is a scaled down version that’s still just right.”

Pernil (Puerto Rican Roast Pork)

Yield: 8-10 servings

ingredients1 boneless skinless pork shoulder or Boston butt (about 4-6 lbs)Adobo, 20g per pound of pork shoulder (recipe follows)

Adobo seasoning60g kosher salt, about 5 tablespoons (we recommend Diamond Kosher Salt for its flaky texture)15 g dried garlic, about 1 tablespoon3 g dried oregano, about 1-2 teaspoons6 g freshly ground black pepper, about 1.5 teaspoons6 g ground coriander, about 1.5 teaspoons3 g ground cumin, about 1 teaspoonpreparation

For the Adobo seasoning: Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Can be prepared in advance and kept in the pantry.

The night before: Pat the pork shoulder dry with paper towels. Rub generously with Adobo, making sure all sides are evenly coated. Place the pork, skin-side up, on a roasting rack in a roasting pan to allow the pork to lift out of its juices as it cooks. Leave the spices in the fridge overnight; This ensures the meat is seasoned throughout and stays juicy.

The next day: Preheat the oven to 275ºF and move an oven rack closer to the bottom of the oven. When the oven reaches 275º F, place the skillet in the oven. Cook for 2.5 to 3.5 hours at 275F, periodically checking the temperature of the pork. The pork is done when the internal temperature reaches 165ºF and the juices run clear. If the skin isn’t crispy enough, you can increase the temperature to 400F for 5-10 minutes to crisp it up.

Let the pork sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before slicing. We recommend slicing out the crispy skin before slicing the meat, then serving each portion with some of the crispy skin.

Serving suggestions: Prepare some rice with pigeon peas to serve with the pernil for a traditional Christmas dinner. Or let cool completely and slice thinly to make Cubano sandwiches with some ham, Swiss cheese, mustard and pickles. Full recipe below.

Cubano sandwich

ingredients2 ounces pork/pernil2 ounces ham2 slices of Swiss cheeseSliced ​​cucumbers (to taste)MustardmayoBread – use any you like!

instructions

Place ham on Pernil, top with Swiss cheese slices on a pan/baking tray; Heat in the oven until the cheese has melted.

While meat and cheese are in the oven, toast your bread or roll.

Serve bread with mayonnaise, mustard and pickles.

Use a spatula to remove the meat and cheese from the pan and place on the roll.