Why are French fries always relegated to the side of a dish when they’d be just as satisfying (if not more so) heaped on top of an entree? Like sprinkles on an ice cream cone, or pepperoni on pizza, or pickles on a cheeseburger.
This is the question we asked ourselves when Erik Ramirez, chef at Brooklyn restaurant Llama Inn, stopped by the MUNCHIES Test Kitchen to make his famous lomo saltado: a Peruvian classic consisting of stir-fried tenderloin and veggies drowned in a rich veal-stock-based jus and topped with fries, scallions, and rocoto pepper sauce. The dish (billed as beef tenderloin stir-fry on the Llama Inn menu) “is a childhood favorite,” Ramirez tells us. “It’s considered a criollo dish, which means popular city food. Peru has many different regions, and this is something you’d find everywhere—the coasts, the jungle, the south. It’s comfort food. That’s how I like to eat.”
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At the restaurant, he serves the entree with slices of avocado and a stack of crepes made with rice starch, flour, egg, milk, and sesame oil. “I prefer it over a traditional crepe,” says Ramirez. “It’s a little chewier. We put a nice little char on it so it holds everything, because if you use a regular crepe and add the filling, it’ll break. This is a little sturdier and sops up the juices.”
While Ramirez typically uses a veggie mix of tomatoes, peppers, and onions, lomo saltado can be made with whatever veg you have on hand. “You could put broccoli in it, green beans, carrots… You could use shrimp, chicken… the most important part is the sauce, and how it’s cooked,” Ramirez explains. “You have to catch it on fire to get that nice smoky flavor.” A wok is key.
Ramirez’s lomo sauce is made with soy sauce, oyster sauce, vinegar, and veal jus—”veal stock reduced down until it’s really unctuous and rich. I think that’s what makes this lomo so good.”
Once the beef, veggies, and lomo sauce have been sautéed to smoky perfection, they’re heaped onto a dish and sprinkled generously with fries, scallions, and spicy crema. Then, it’s time to build: Load up a crepe with all the fixin’s and drizzle with even more crema. Once you’ve demolished the plate, sop up the remaining sauce with lots of white rice. Two meals in one.
RECIPE: Beef Tenderloin Stir-Fry
