Lomo Saltado

Mauricio Dominguez

Professor Chris dePagnier

Food and Culture

Research Paper Topic

Lomo Saltado

(Jumped Steak)

My recipe and research will focus on the popular and famous Peruvian dish called “Lomo Saltado”. That is, I should clarify one of the more popular and preferred Peruvian dishes known through out the places I’ve traveled and/or lived in the US. It goes without saying off course, and outside of Peru. As a side note, the most famous dish in Peru is “ceviche”, also known as the national dish, but that’s a whole other research paper. The name “Lomo Saltado” which in lamens terms translates into “jumped steak”, or simply put, a sort of Peruvian stir fry is directly associated with the cooking technique employed to adequately attain the final product which is always accompanied by a side of white rice. A smoky flavored mix of tangy steak along with red onion, French fried potato, Peruvian chili pepper, garlic, tomato, parsley, soy sauce, and vinegar, all stir fried, using an up and over flipping technique, hence the name “jumped”, over very high heat, thus obtaining the desired smokiness. One of the articles I read as part of my research, found in a food blog called Cuzco eats and written by David Knowlton, one of the few written in English and that spoke intelligently about lomo saltado here in the US touched a little on the name translation and the literal meaning. It indicated that “Translated literally, the name seems to mean “jumped loin” or loin made to jump about.  The image is much more poetic and precise than the English stir fry, since the chef does make the beef jump in a hot fry pan or wok.”(Knowlton, 2011)

Peru, like the United States is a melting pot of sorts, hosting different cultures and being heavily influenced by them culinarily speaking. The more prevalent being the Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and African. This specific dish combines some of our native ingredients such as the potato, the tomato, and chili pepper,...