Peruvian cuisine
Lomo saltado
Beef seared in a wok with onion and tomato, served with both chips and rice at once.
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 20 min
- Total
- 40 min
- Difficulty
- Medium
Ingredients
- Beef sirloin — in strips600 g
- Red onion — in thick wedges2
- Tomatoes — in wedges3
- Ají amarillo1
- Soy sauce4 tbsp
- Red wine vinegar2 tbsp
- Garlic3 clove
- Chips600 g
- Cooked rice400 g
- Corianderto taste
- Neutral oil3 tbsp
Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.
Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.
Method
- 1
Marinate the beef in the soy, vinegar and garlic for fifteen minutes, then pat it dry: a wet surface will not scorch.
15 min
- 2
Heat the pan until it smokes and sear the beef in two batches, ninety seconds each, leaving it alone for the first forty seconds. Set it aside.
5 min
- 3
In the same pan fry the onion and ají for ninety seconds — the onion should stay crisp inside.
2 min
- 4
Return the beef, pour in what is left of the marinade, add the tomatoes and warm through for half a minute. Take it off and stir in the coriander.
2 min
- 5
Serve with hot chips — some tossed into the pan so they take up the sauce — and a separate helping of rice.
About the dish
Lomo saltado is the clearest dish of the chifa style, Peruvian-Chinese: wok technique and soy sauce applied to Peruvian ingredients. Chips and rice on the same plate are not excess but exactly that fusion.
The beef is seared in batches over the fiercest heat available. The moment the pan is crowded the meat starts giving up juice and stewing, and the whole dish rests on those scorch marks.
The tomatoes go in last and barely cook: they should warm through and stay as wedges rather than turn into sauce.
Worth knowing
- — A domestic hob does not give the heat this wants, so cook the meat in handfuls. Two batches beat one.
- — The chips go in at the last moment. Left sitting in the sauce they soften and lose the point.
- — Ají amarillo is sold as a paste in jars; it gives the same flavour and keeps for months.
Nutrition
Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.
- Calories
- 720 kcal
- Protein
- 42 g
- Fat
- 26 g
- Carbs
- 76 g
More from Peru
- Ceviche — Raw fish in lime juice with onion and ají. It marinates for minutes, not hours — longer and it is cooked through.