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I used to watch Bobby Flays’ Throwdown show at Food Network pretty often. Every week they are showing Bobby Flay goes head-to-head to cooks who have claimed to be masters of certain dishes. Bobby never cooked them before but went ahead and challenged the cooks. Sometimes he won, sometimes he didn’t. I got a hold of the Bobby Flay’s Throwdown cookbook and tried out several recipes. The first one I did was Cuban crepes, where the cooks, Nessa Higgins and Andrea Day-Boykin’s won this Throwdown against Bobby Flay’s duck and shiitake mushroom crepes with habanero sauce.
The Cuban crepes is made with pulled pork that was roasted for about 4 hours in a brown paper bag resulting in very tender pork. The pulled pork is then wrapped with crepes and accompanied by mustard and tabasco sauce. Honestly, I was never a fan of tabasco sauce. Strangely though, this Cuban crepes go so well with the combination of mustard and tabasco sauce. The tangy-ness just cut through everything nicely.
How To Make Really Good Cuban Crepes
Ingredients
- 2 lbs boneless pork butt
- 1 Tbsp kosher salt
- ½ Tbsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp red pepper flakes
CREPES (about 10 crepes):
- 1 ½ cups whole milk
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon coarse salt
- 4 large eggs
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter (melted) divided
Serve with:
- Mustard
- Tabasco
- Cheese such as shredded pepper jack
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300 F
- Mix the salt, pepper, onion powder and red pepper flakes in a bowl. Rub the pork with the mixture. Place the pork inside (fatty side up) a brown paper bag lined with one sheet of aluminum foil. I used brown paper bag I got from grocery store. Close the bag by folding it down. Place the bag on a rimmed baking sheet and roast until an instant-read thermometer read 185-190 F, about 4 hours or maybe a bit longer depending on your oven
- Remove the pork from the bag, reserving any juices in the bag. When the pork is cool enough to handle, shred it into large pieces and toss it with the juices in the bowl
Making the crepes:
- To make the crepes, place the eggs, milk, and 1/2 cup water, flour, 2 Tbsp melted butter in a blender until it's smooth. Cover and let it rest for 15 minutes up to 1 hour if you have the time
- Heat a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat it with a little melted butter, lower the heat, take the pan off the heat and pour in 1/3 cup crepe batter, swirling the skillet to spread it evenly over the bottom and place it back on heat. Cook for about 2 minutes, until the underside has golden brown spots all over; then flip and cook until speckled on the other side, about 1 minute. Repeat to make the remaining crepes. Stack the crepes on the plate
- Put a crepe back in the skillet, and fold it in half. Scatter 1/4 cup of the cheese across the center of the crepe, and top it with 1/3 cup pork. Then drizzle with some mustard and tabasco, and add some pickles over the top if you want. Fold one corner of the crepe just over the filling; then roll the crepe to make a closed package. Repeat with the remaining crepes and filling
- Serve immediately with some extra mustard and tabasco on the side
