Lomo Saltado

I’ve written previously about my affinity for elevated peasant food.  There is no dish that typifies that more than Lomo Saltado, a traditional Peruvian dish of steak, vegetables, and French fries typically served over white rice.  My take on this dish internationalizes it a bit by marinating the steak in soy sauce and Bordeaux, and serving it over orzo rather than white rice.  The staples are the same.

1 skirt steak

1 large potato

2 medium rip tomatoes

1 serano pepper

1 can of black beans

5 cremini mushrooms

8 peeled cloves of garlic

1 medium ripe tomato

2 medium shallots

1 package of orzo

1 bottle of soy sauce

1 bottle of inexpensive Bordeaux

Canola oil, or another oil with a high flash point

Freshly ground pepper

Using your chefs knife, smash four clove of garlic and give them a rough chop.  Dice one of the shallots and place them in a dish with the garlic and the skirt steak.  Add enough soy sauce and wine, in equal measure, to cover the steak.  Rub the steak vigorously and liberally with freshly cracked perpper before marinating it.  Allow the meat to marinade for at least one hour but preferably two to three hours.

Cook the orzo to within a measure of al dente – there will be another cooking cycle that will finish it.

Cut the potato into French fries of your preferred thickness – I prefer a medium width just a touch larger than McDonald’s fries.  Soak them in water for an hour or so.  Rinse the black beans. Slice the shallots, mushrooms, and cerano pepper, and the remaining cloves of garlic.

Near the end of the marinade cycle, heat the oil to just before the flash point.  Don’t forget to salt the oil.  Place half of the French fries in the oil (placing them all in at once would lower the temperature of the oil too much and prevent the crisping of the potato.) Drain the fries and place them in a large covered sauté pan.  Fry the remainder of the potatoes.  Drain them and place in the sauté pan.

Drain most of the remaining oil so that there is just enough to cover the bottom of the pan.  Add the garlic to that pan and cook until softened, add the peppers, mushrooms, shallots, black beans and tomatoes in that order, adding each ingredient when the last is almost cooked. Drain them all to remove any excess oil from the vegetables.  Sauté the black beans and add them to the

There should be just enough oil left in the pan to cook the steak.  Cook the steak for ninety seconds on one side and turn it.  Immediately upon flipping the steak place the pan in a 365 degree oven for five minutes.  Let the steak rest for five minutes before slicing diagonally across the grain.

While the steak is cooking, add the orzo to the sauté pan and heat over medium heat with a pat of butter until all ingredients are equally dispersed and hot.

Deglaze the pan with a cup of wine, add a pat of butter and a heavy splash of cream.  Whisk the mixture until smooth and pour over the orzo-vegetable mixture.  Sauté it until evenly coated.

Serve in bowls and top with pieces of the sliced steak.