World Cup Dinners

World Cup fever is boiling away in Peru, with ‘Los Incas’ qualifying for the tournament for the first time in 36 years. Their last outing was in Spain ’82, where they got knocked out in the first round, despite a memorable draw with eventual champions Italy.

I shared the Peruvian excitement in qualifying as I recently had one of the all-times best meals of my life in a Peruvian restaurant in London, and this offered the perfect opportunity to make some of their dishes.

Lima Peru (https://www.limalondongroup.com/fitzrovia) is the Michelin star awarded restaurant of world-renowned chef Virgilio Martinez where contemporary and gastronomic Peruvian cuisine is the order of the day.

When I went there I tried some dishes such as Sea Bream Ceviche, Corn Hot Ceviche, and Lamb Seco from the Lunch Menu which you can view here:

https://my.propcom.co.uk/data/media/pdf/A3%20Lunch%20Menu.pdf?zoom=fit

It was amazing- the Seafood Ceviche was my first thought for the World Cup Dinner, but it’s a pretty complex dish, so rather than mimic the Lima Peru meal I decided to go down a simpler, beefier, route with Lomo Saltado which is a popular traditional Peruvian stir-fry typically consisting of marinated strips of steak, chips, onions, tomatoes and chillis.

Some recipes call for home made fries, but it seems to be more ‘authentic’ to go with premade McCain type chips fried at home, so I thought I would go for that too.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

For the marinade:

• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 8 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp balsamic vingar
• 2 tsp worcestershire sauce
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• salt and black pepper to taste

For the Lomo Saltado:

• 1 fillet steak/ per person cut into 1cm thick, long strips.
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil for frying
• 1 large red onion cut into 8 wedges
• 2 vine tomatoes cut into 8 wedges each
• 2 red chilli cut into slices
• 240g fries (60g portionper person)

For Garnish:

• Some fresh coriander and parsley finely chopped.

Method:

1. For the marinade, mix all the ingredients together in a bowl with two tablespoons of water until well combined.
2. Add the meat to the bowl and mix so that it is well covered in the marinade. Put in a ziplock back and leave as long as possible, at least 2 hours.
3. Cook the chips in the oven per instructions on the chip pack.
4. Also put the tomato and onion wedges in the oven with a drizzle of oil and salt and pepper.
5. When the fries are ready remove from oven and add to a frying pan with 2 tbsp of oil to ‘finish’ them with a nice crispy coating.
6. Remove fries, but keep the oil in the pan.
7. Dry the fries on some kitchen roll.
8. Remove fries from pan, and add marinated steak. Cook for around 3 minutes, then add the sliced chillis and cook for a further minute.

To serve:

Dish up white rice on each plate, then portion the steak, chips, onions and tomatoes.

Garnish with the parsley & coriander.

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