Tasty Lomo Saltado! (Peruvian Beef Stir Fry) + Garlic Rice

Lomo Saltado, Anyone? We fell in love with this dish after trying it at the very popular Mario’s Peruvian Restaurant on Melrose. Every time we head over there, we order this particular dish–beef, tomato, red onions, and FRIES!!!! Who would have thunk of stir frying fries into their food? Bloody Brilliant Peruvians!

We decided to give it a try in making this dish, and we have perfected it over the years to suit our taste buds. It’s not that difficult to make, and is a very worthwhile dish to try. For those of you who have not tried this dish before, you will be surprised and hooked on this tasty meal–sweet onions + salt-tangy fries, and juicy meat. . This dish is served with garlic rice and in this entry, we will teach you a very easy way to make garlic rice.

Here it goes!

Lomo Saltado

What You Need:

• French fries
• Steak/meat
• Red Onion
• 1 Tomato
• Soy Sauce
• Rice Vinegar
• Salt and Pepper
• spices to taste–optional

What to Do:

Cut the tomato and Onion like so:

Cut the steak into strips and salt and pepper the meat. During the wait time (~30 minutes, put the fries into an oven and bake. Also, cook some rice in the rice cooker.

Heat up a frying pan to VERY high heat. When the pan is ready, apply oil and cook the steak strips.

When the meat has browned, add in the onions and tomato. Continue to saute.

We like to cook the onions until they are somewhat soft. Once you can see that they are, get the soy sauce, and drizzle it on there. You don’t need much. We would say..oh, about 1-1 and 1/2 tablespoon.

Next, do the same with the rice vinegar. Depending on how much you put the vinegar, your dish will be more or less tangy. We usually use about 1/2 tablespoon of rice vinegar.

We are almost there. At this time, you can add in your various spices–black pepper, cayenne, paprika, etc. This is optional, of course.

Now it’s time for the fries! Here is the picture right after the oven:

Now grab that tray, and gently pour the fries into the pan. Over the years, we found out that the longer we stirred the fries into the mixture, the more soggy the fries would turn out. So, reserve this is step as the last and quickest step. You are just going to add the fries, stir about three times, and turn off the heat.

Oh so Yummy looking! This part is DONE. You can totally now enjoy this by itself…OR read on ahead to make the garlic rice! So easy, we promise!

Garlic Rice Recipe

What You Need:

• Rice (we used basmati)
• Garlic (1-2)
• butter
• lemon juice-optional

What to Do:

Before you make the lomo saltado, cook the rice.

Dice the garlic into small pieces.

Heat up a fry pan and melt the butter.

Add in the garlic. Now this is an optional step. Put in a good squirt of lemon juice.

Now, gently brown the garlic….barely brown. We tilted the fry pan this way so that the garlic would be fully immersed in the butter.

Next, turn off the heat and open up the top of our rice cooker. The rice should already be done. Pour all the contents of the fry pan into the rice container.

Now, stir stir stir.

The garlic rice is done! Can you believe how quick that was? When you taste the rice, you will definitely taste that tint of garlic and butter. Fantastic!

Now that the rice and lomo saltado are done. Plate the two, and enjoy your meal! (they make fantastic leftovers, by the way. ) Thank us later. Bye!

 

Kimchi ‘Pancakes’ aka Kimchi Jun

Kimchi ‘Pancakes’ are a comfort side dish back at home. I recently met my mom and begged her to teach me how to make it…. and she finally gave in! I tried these today, and my oh my~brings me back home! LOVE IT! Here is the super easy and quick recipe!

Things You Need (makes about four):

• Good fermented Kimchi
• Flour
• Egg
• Sugar

 

What to Do:

First get a good handful of kimchi and dice it up like so:

 

Next, crack open an egg in a bowl and break the egg yolk–mix mix mix! Next add in 2-3 spoonfuls of flour as well as a good pinchful of sugar. Eye the amount of flour you put in. You don’t want it too thick, but just enough so that you can make a good ‘pancake’ like batter.

 

 

Now add in the kimchi into the mixture.

Now heat up the pan with oil and when the pan is hot, put in a good spoonful of the mixture (like pancakes!).

 

Don’t forget to flip them over once!

 

You are done! These are delicious plain, or with a dipping sauce. Just in case you want to dip them in a sauce, here is my recipe for the sauce:

In a small sauce dish, put in about 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of rice vinegar. Next add in about 1/2 tablespoon of sugar and a good sprinkle of Korean Red Pepper Flakes. Top that off with a sprinkle of sesame seeds! For an added kick, you can dice up a little bit of green onions and mix it into the sauce.

 

 

 

 

ENJOY!

 

Tasty Asian Beef Stew

This is a dish that H particularly enjoys. It is inspired from both the Western Beef Stew and the Chinese Beef Noodle Soup. The combination of Western and Asian ingredients marry beautifully together and brings about a delcious flavor that one cannot quite place a finger on–”what is IN this?” Well, it is a combination of many things. To name a few: beef (duh), tomato, soy sauce, star anise, and ginger. Are you excited yet? 

Another great thing about this recipe is that it is very cheap to make. You can make a whole pot of this and enjoy it for the rest of the week with rice…with bread…with noodles…or just alone. Please, next time you are craving beef stew, give this stew a chance. You do not want to miss out on this dish!

What You Need:

• Beef for stewing (beef shank brings great flavor!)
• Soy Sauce
• Whole Star Anise (We found this at the local Asian Store)
• Ginger (ginger flavor is not too strong, so for you ginger haters, don’t worry)
• Garlic
• 1 Can of Beef Broth
• 1 Can of diced tomato
• Hon Dashi
• sugar
• Carrot
• Onion

What to Do:

First, we have to cut the carrots and onion–cut into bite size pieces. Let’s also dice the garlic and slice the ginger.

Next, cut the beef into a nice stew-size:

Now, heat up some oil in a big pot and brown the meat.

After the meat has browned, you can either take the meat out while you cook the onions, but being lazy, we decided to just add the onions, garlic, and ginger in the pot with the meat. Stir, stir, stir!

Next, add in the carrots.

Ok, the hard part is done. Open the can of tomatoes and pour it into the pot.

Open up the can of beef broth, and pour that in. Pour in one and 1/2 cans of water into the can, and pour that in as well.

Now put in 3-4 star anises into the pot. You can choose to put them in a cheese cloth if you do not want to deal with the star anise when you eat the stew–up to you.

Next, put in 4-5 spoons of soy sauce.

And now for the last step, put in a pinchful of hon dashi and about 1/2 spoonful of sugar.

Now, bring the stew to a boil…then turn down to heat, cover and let simmer for a couple hours.

Now DIG IN! ENJOY! YUM!