As the Buffalo Bills prepare to face a new opponent each week, fans take on the age-old arch-nemesis know as “hunger.” Never fear, Buffalo Rumblings has just the playbook to take down this foe. Each week, we’ll dive into enemy territory to scout their signature moves and put a “Buffalo” spin on it. Translated, each week we’ll share a themed recipe based on who the Bills are playing, including a custom wing sauce to go with each dish. Our opponent this week:

Miami Dolphins

The Cuban: While there’s some debate on where The Cuban was invented, it’s almost certainly not Miami. However, this Florida cuisine has regional variants. The Miami version is all about holding the salami. If regular ham and cheese doesn’t do it for you anymore, this significantly amped-up version will restore your faith in the sandwich standard.

For the sauce, we’ll make our first detour from the traditional two ingredients of butter and hot sauce. We’ll create a hybrid of wing sauce using some mojo rojo components to act like we’re going for a more authentic experience.

The Cuban

Serves: 6-8
Active Time: 45 Minutes
Total Time: 9 hours

Ingredients

Mojo Pork

• 1 Tbsp garlic
• ¹⁄₂ tsp parsley
• ¹⁄₂ tsp paprika
• ¹⁄₄ tsp cumin
• 1 tsp oregano
• ³⁄₄ cup hot sauce
• ¹⁄₄ cup olive oil
• Juice from two limes (or bitter orange if you can find them)
• Pork tenderloin (about 1 lb)*

The rest of the sandwich (enough of each to cover however many sandwiches you’re making)

• Bread**
• Olive oil, 1 tsp per sandwich
• Mustard
• Swiss cheese
• Pickles, chips or sandwich sliced
• Sliced ham

Making the pork

1. Place garlic, parsley, paprika, cumin and oregano in a medium saucepan on LOW. Heat for 1 min.
2. Add hot sauce, olive oil and lime juice. Stir until well blended; heat for 5 min.
3. Place pork tenderloin and sauce in a slow cooker. Cook, covered, on HIGH for two hours.
4. Turn tenderloin, reduce heat to low.
5. Turn the tenderloin every 60 to 90 min.
6. At around the six-hour mark, the tenderloin should be easy to shred with a fork (or two). Shred pork and cook for one more hour. Depending on slow cooker, this could take 7-8 hours total.

Assembling Sandwich

1. Mustard should go on the bread. Aside from that there’s some leeway in adding the ham, cheese, pickles and mojo pork you just made
2. Now that you have something strongly resembling a sandwich, brush the outside of the bread with olive oil***
3. Most people will be using a frying pan. If so, this is like cooking a grilled cheese sandwich with the exception that it’s supposed to be a pressed sandwich. Apply pressure with a spatula while cooking****

Wingin’ It Tips

*Depending on how many people you’re trying to feed there might be a lot of extra mojo pork. This shouldn’t be a problem because it’s delicious, but halve the tenderloin if you’re worried about leftovers.

**Cuban bread ideally. If you can’t find that, French is the next best bet.

***I like to brush one side then place the sandwich oil side down in the frying pan. Then oil the other side that’s face-up. It saves from handling an oily sandwich.

****If you own a sandwich press, whether it’s a plancha or something made famous by a boxer, you can go ahead and use that.

The Beer

We pair lime with lime as we take one last longing look at the Summer that’s way behind us. As we near one of the biggest drinking nights of the year, we have a special cocktail in the official Labatt Blue pint glass of Wingin’ It. Simply mix ice and water and you have a drink known as “plan to get home safely.” It’s not a catchy name, but it’s one your loved ones will appreciate you remembering. As long as one person in your group chooses this drink, you’re doing it right!

Beer products provided by Labatt USA. Please drink responsibly.

Coming soon!

Nothing. No more Wingin’ It until next season. At least there’s no current plans. Thank you to everyone who chose to come along on this wing-sauce adventure with me. Sixteen weeks and sixteen sauces has made for a heck of a ride. Another round of gratitude has to go out to anyone who took it seriously enough to try one of these. Thank you to Labatt USA for giving me some attractive frames to put around my food. Thank you to Buffalo Rumblings for allowing me to pursue this insanity and Matt Warren for the thumbs up on some off-the-wall content. But most of all, thank you to my beautiful wife and daughters who were often test subjects in my mad culinary experiments.