Kitchen Secrets with Our Cuban Chef – Medianoche Sandwich

A medianoche is a Cuban sandwich built on soft egg bread. The filling is the one you already know: roast pork, sweet ham, Swiss cheese, yellow mustard and dill pickles, pressed flat on a hot plancha until the cheese runs. What changes is the bread, and the bread changes everything.

Medianoche bread is enriched. There is egg in the dough, a little sugar, a little fat, and it bakes into a small oblong roll with a yellow crumb and a thin, soft crust. Under the press it does not shatter the way Cuban bread does. It compresses, and the sugar on the surface caramelises into something darker and glossier than a Cuban sandwich ever gets.

It is a smaller sandwich, and it is meant to be. You can eat one standing up in five minutes. Here is how our kitchen puts it together, and what goes wrong when it is rushed.

Why it is called a midnight sandwich

Medianoche means midnight, and the name is literal. The sandwich belongs to the late-night trade in Havana’s clubs and cabarets, where the kitchen sent out something small and hot after the last show, for people who wanted more than a snack and less than dinner. Exact dates are hard to pin down and anyone who gives you a precise year is guessing, but the pattern is clear enough: this is food built around the hour it was served.

The bread came first, and it was not invented for the sandwich. Cuban bakeries have long made a soft enriched roll alongside the long lean loaf, sold for breakfast and for merienda, the late-afternoon coffee break. It is closer to challah or brioche than to sandwich bread, though leaner than either. When someone put the standard pressed sandwich filling inside one, the result was sweeter, softer and easier to eat at two in the morning.

That is the real difference between a medianoche and a Cuban sandwich, and it is worth being precise about it. A Cuban sandwich is built on Cuban bread: a long lean loaf made with lard, baked to a thin crust that cracks and flakes all over the counter. It is bigger, saltier and drier. In Tampa it also carries a layer of Genoa salami, a habit picked up from the Italian families who lived alongside Cuban and Spanish workers in Ybor City, and you will not find that layer in Miami or in Havana. The medianoche leaves salami out entirely. Same idea, different bread, different hour.

Ingredients

• 4 medianoche rolls (soft Cuban egg bread), about 6 inches each
• 12 oz roast pork (lechon asado), thinly sliced or shredded
• 8 oz sweet ham (jamon dulce), thinly sliced
• 8 slices Swiss cheese, about 6 oz total
• 4 tbsp yellow mustard
• 20 dill pickle chips, or 2 whole dill pickles sliced lengthwise
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened, for the outside of the bread

How to make a medianoche sandwich

1. Take the pork, ham and cheese out of the fridge 20 minutes before you start. Cold filling is the single most common reason a pressed sandwich comes off the grill with a dark crust and cheese that never melted.
2. Heat a plancha, flat griddle or heavy skillet to 300F to 325F. That is lower than you would use for a Cuban sandwich, and it is deliberate. Egg and sugar in the dough mean this bread colours fast, and on a hotter surface it scorches long before the inside is warm.
3. Split each roll lengthwise with a serrated knife, leaving one long side attached as a hinge. Do not pull out the soft crumb. It is what holds the shape once the weight goes on.
4. Spread about a tablespoon of yellow mustard over both cut faces, right out to the edges so no bite is dry. Mustard is the only condiment that belongs in here. No mayonnaise, no butter on the inside, no lettuce or tomato.
5. Lay a slice of Swiss on the bottom face, then 3 oz of roast pork, then 2 oz of ham folded loosely rather than laid flat so it keeps some height. Add four or five pickle chips, patted dry on a towel, and finish with the second slice of Swiss pressed against the top face. Cheese against both faces melts into the bread and glues the sandwich shut.
6. Butter the outside of the roll, top and bottom, in a thin even film. Do not be heavy handed. Butter is what takes the sugary crust from pale to deep brown, and too much of it fries the bread instead of toasting it.
7. Set the sandwich on the hot surface and press it. In a two-sided press, close the lid and leave it alone for 4 to 5 minutes. On a griddle or in a skillet, lay a heavy pan on top and lean on it, cook 3 to 4 minutes, then turn the sandwich over and cook another 3 to 4 minutes under the same weight. It is ready when it has come down to about half its original height, the crust is deep golden and glossy, and cheese is just starting to creep out at the edges.
8. Move it to a board and give it a minute so the cheese firms up slightly, then cut it in half on a long diagonal. Eat it straight away. A medianoche that sits for ten minutes goes soft and gives up its crust.

Chef’s notes

• Heat is where most people lose this sandwich. A Cuban sandwich forgives a hot plancha because the bread is lean; medianoche bread has sugar in it and will go from brown to bitter in under a minute. Lower heat, more time, more weight.
• Use dill pickles, never sweet or bread-and-butter ones. The bread is already sweet and the ham usually is too. The pickle is the only sharp thing on the plate, so it has to stay sharp. Pat the slices dry or the steam will soften the crust from the inside.
• If you cannot find medianoche rolls, use challah rolls or a soft brioche bun and accept that it will be slightly richer. What you should not do is build it on Cuban bread. That is not a medianoche, it is a small Cuban sandwich.
• Press it properly. A sandwich that has only been toasted is half done. The weight is what fuses the layers, drives the heat through to the centre and gives you a sandwich you can eat with one hand.

What to eat and drink with it

A medianoche does not need much next to it. Plantain chips or fries are the usual companions in Tampa, and a few tostones work if you want something more substantial. Anything heavy defeats the point of a sandwich designed to be eaten quickly and late.

To drink, coffee. A colada if there are people to share it with, a cafe con leche if it is closer to morning than to midnight. Cold, a malta or a lemonade cuts through the fat better than a soda does. If you want the original context, the lounge here runs Thursday to Saturday from 10pm to 3am, which is exactly the window this sandwich was made for.

Prefer to let us cook?

We press medianoches to order at our kitchen on 5555 S 78th St in Tampa, on the same egg bread, with the same roast pork, sweet ham and Swiss. Order the Cuban Midnight Sandwich for pickup, compare it against the Cuban Sandwich if you want to taste the difference side by side, or browse the full Cuban menu and skip the line.