Content creator Jona Won takes on the T-bone steak challenge by serving up his take on lomo saltado, a traditional Peruvian stir-fry. Chifa, a Chinese Peruvian cooking style that combines ingredients from both cultures, influences the bold flavors and techniques in this recipe. Once the stir-fry is complete, it's paired with double the starch: fried potatoes and rice. Top it off with salsa criolla, a fresh pickled onion salad, and you've got one vibrant dish with just the right amount of heat.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00We're using our filet, but we may need a little bit extra.
00:03♪♪
00:10I'm half Colombian, half Chinese.
00:12Definitely a lot of chifa influence in my cooking.
00:15Chifa is essentially the amalgamation
00:17of Peruvian spices and flavors
00:20in combination with a lot of Chinese ingredients.
00:22Soy sauce, scallions, ginger, a wok.
00:25When those two meld together, you get great results.
00:28Ah, let's see what we have here.
00:31♪♪
00:34Mmm.
00:36That's a nice porterhouse right there.
00:38You got your strip steak, you got your filet,
00:41and, yeah, it's gonna be delicious.
00:43All right, for this specific recipe,
00:44we're gonna need a little bit more meat.
00:45Thankfully, we have some on the side.
00:47What we're gonna do is take it off the bone.
00:49We'll use the filet for the lomo saltado.
00:51This is a little bit more tender.
00:52And we'll use the strip for trimmings for the beef stock.
00:55As you can see here,
00:56the marbling on this steak is much more pronounced.
00:58It has a bit more flavor.
00:59For the filet, you don't see that marbling.
01:01It's a muscle that's not used as much,
01:03which lends itself to tenderness.
01:05Don't throw this out.
01:06There's a lot of flavor in the marrow and the fat,
01:08so we're gonna include this in our stock.
01:10Scallions.
01:11For this particular part, we only need the scallion whites,
01:14so maybe we'll end them there.
01:17And we can give this just a little chop in half.
01:20Same for our aji amarillo.
01:22These look beautiful.
01:23And we don't have to worry about deseeding.
01:25Just take them out.
01:26Cut them into nice, manageable segments.
01:28If you can only find aji amarillo paste,
01:30that's a wonderful substitute.
01:32I just really like that charred flavor of the skin
01:34that only really comes with the fresh ones.
01:36We're trying to recreate the heat from a wok hei,
01:39and although we have a normal burner
01:41that's not gonna get anywhere close in terms of BTU,
01:44we're gonna try to replicate that
01:45by letting our pan preheat a lot.
01:48You don't want to add your oil too quick,
01:50otherwise it's going to burn.
01:54Here we have some Roma's tomatoes.
01:56Just gonna give this a rough chop.
01:58This is our beef tallow.
02:01So what you're looking for here
02:02is sort of that shimmer and ripples.
02:05Almost just about there.
02:06You might also see some smoke coming out.
02:08That's a really good indication
02:09that your pan is hot enough to start cooking.
02:16Be generous with the salt.
02:17What we're looking for is a nice little charred color.
02:20Keep them moving,
02:21but when you're on an induction like this,
02:22you want to make sure you're not tossing too much,
02:24otherwise you're not making direct contact with the pan
02:26and then it's not heating up.
02:27We can speed things up.
02:31Guillamerillo segments.
02:32Scallion, whites, and tomato.
02:35All right, now on to our beef stock.
02:37In a nice pot that's big enough,
02:38you want to be sure to add all of our aromatics.
02:42Cilantro.
02:45Beef stock.
02:47Soy sauce.
02:49Red wine vinegar.
02:50Some oyster sauce.
02:53And finally, our T-bone
02:56and whatever scraps and beef trimmings that you have.
02:59Now we have everything in,
03:00I'm going to put this off to the side,
03:01let it come up to a boil for an hour,
03:03let it cool, then we'll come back to it.
03:06So this is another step
03:07that's not traditionally necessary for a lomo saltado,
03:10but because we're taking it up another level,
03:12we're going to add this garlic ginger confit.
03:14We got our pan nicely heating up.
03:17While that's getting ready,
03:18we're going to get our Vitamix.
03:20And we're going to go in with our whole garlic cloves.
03:24Ginger.
03:25And we're going to go just under with the oil.
03:31Let it come together, then we can speed it up.
03:36Listo.
03:37This is what we're looking for.
03:38It's going to go for 30 minutes total.
03:43You want to give this stirring about every five minutes,
03:45making sure you're scraping the bottom
03:47so it doesn't burn.
03:48It's going to take time, so be patient.
03:50What you're left with
03:51is a very reduced, intensified flavor
03:53with this beautiful, beautiful amber color.
03:57So this is done.
03:58What we can do is let it cool slightly,
04:00put it in a container,
04:01and it's good to go for up to six months in the fridge.
04:04Okay.
04:05For this portion,
04:06we are going to make our salsa criolla,
04:08which is a traditional onion salad that's pickled,
04:11and it's going to also lend itself really well to this dish
04:13because it adds a lot of acid and vibrancy
04:15to offset a lot of the strong flavors coming from the stove.
04:18All right, we'll get our onions into our bowl.
04:22Now, depending on the spiciness level,
04:24you can go with one jalapeno, two jalapenos.
04:27We're just going to go with one.
04:28I'm going to use a red one
04:29because it's going to be a nice color.
04:31So really gently.
04:32You want to get as thin as possible.
04:37We also have some fresh cilantro.
04:39Get nice, fine, consistent cuts.
04:42Probably going to go with two limes.
04:49There we go.
04:50Very simple salsa criolla.
04:53You can put this in the fridge
04:54while we make our arroz and papas.
04:56If we're talking Chifa and Peruvian cuisine,
04:58we've got to include the potato.
04:59Papa, of course, originates from Peru.
05:01I think over 8,000 varieties,
05:03but it's an integral part of this dish.
05:04What we did here was we parboiled them
05:06to speed up the process a little bit,
05:08cooled them down.
05:09Now we're going to cut them to size and refry.
05:11I like them kind of rustic and thick.
05:13About the same thickness there.
05:19So we'll fry in batches.
05:26All right, so while our French fries are finishing,
05:28we are going to get started on our rice
05:30because there's no such thing as too much starch,
05:33especially when you're talking to Latinos.
05:34We're going to go ahead
05:35and just mince up a little bit of garlic.
05:37You can give them a light little smash.
05:42We're going to intensify and fortify
05:44all those beef flavors
05:45with a little bit more of our beef tallow.
05:50Give that a nice mix,
05:51and our unwashed rice is going to go straight in.
05:54Let that come together for another minute,
05:56continuously mixing.
05:58Let all the oil basically cover all the grains.
06:01And now it looks like our fries are just about ready.
06:05So now what we do is we let this come up to a boil,
06:08turn it down to low,
06:09cover it, and let it cook for 20 minutes.
06:12All of our water has evaporated.
06:14Just want to fluff our rice up a bit.
06:16And we're going to set it off to the side.
06:19Okay, final step is to now get our stir-fry ready.
06:22So just have a few quick ingredients.
06:24Some red onion, some scallion,
06:27and some whole aji amarillo.
06:29Just go nice little...
06:32These will just do a small rough chop.
06:37You can decide to leave the seeds in or out if you'd like.
06:40More seeds means más picante.
06:42So for our purposes, let's use half.
06:46So half deseeded and half with the seeds.
06:50Listo.
06:51All right, so while our pan is getting super, super hot,
06:54we'll add a little bit of beef tallow.
06:58And we got to season our filet.
07:00So salt, black pepper, and a little touch of cumin.
07:05Give that a nice little mix with your hands.
07:12Make sure you separate so that each can contact the pan
07:15and develop a nice little crust.
07:18So in traditional preparation, you would be using a wok,
07:20which would be super, super hot,
07:22and the order of these would change.
07:24But because we're cooking in a home kitchen
07:26and we're using a cast iron and an induction,
07:28order really matters.
07:29So searing off your beef is really important,
07:31locking in all that flavor.
07:32Everything else is going to happen super quick,
07:34two minutes or less.
07:35Now these are about halfway done.
07:36We can start gently tossing.
07:38And we're not going to remove them.
07:39They're going to continue cooking.
07:43Okay, now it's time to add all of our ingredients.
07:48We're going to go in with a little bit of that ginger puree that we made.
07:52Red wine vinegar.
07:54Important to put it on the edges so that it can really caramelize.
07:57Go in with our soy sauce.
08:01This is the reduced beef stock that we had made earlier
08:03with the trimmings, cilantro, a lot of aromatics,
08:06a lot of aji amarillo and garlic.
08:09Tenemos los papas fritas.
08:11If you're Peruvian, you're going to save half to keep crispy,
08:14and half of them are going right in.
08:21To help thicken things,
08:23very similar to French cooking,
08:24where they would make a flour and butter mixture, a roux.
08:27We have the same exact thing,
08:29but in a cornstarch and water slurry.
08:32Equal parts.
08:33Make sure you always add your water first,
08:35then your dry component.
08:36And this is what's going to happen.
08:37It's going to stick to the bottom,
08:38so you always got to reinvigorate it before you add it in.
08:42We're going to go in with just a touch to start.
08:44You'll start seeing how it's going to come together.
08:46Let's get plated.
08:54Make sure you get some nice pop.
08:56Make sure you get some sauce on there.
09:03And here we have our salsa criolla.
09:06We can put a little bit on top for that acid,
09:09and the rest we can put off to the side
09:11so that people can take it as they want.
09:16All right, so double starch means crispy fries on top.
09:20That's all she wrote, people.
09:22This is our lomo saltado,
09:23filled with bold, beautiful, strong flavors,
09:25and it's going to pair well perfectly
09:27with our helada, limón, and sal.
09:29All right, I'm really looking forward to this first bite.
09:36Mmm, that's perfect.
09:38I think I was able to basically get the huaque flavor that I wanted.
09:41A nice sear on the meat,
09:43and everything came together really composed.
09:45Lomo I grew up eating in my house was a bit less traditional.
09:48Had some ketchup in there as well.
09:50This one is a bit more upscale and refined.
09:52Of course, we took a lot of additional steps
09:54in making our own beef stock,
09:55making our own garlic and ginger puree.
09:57A bit of effort definitely pays dividends
09:59in terms of your final dish.