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Lomo Saltado

A stir-fry of marinated beef, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, and Peruvian chili, served over rice.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 29,058 recipes mention both. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Lomo Saltado

Serves 6
Total1 hr

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the meat into thin strips.

  2. Marinate the strips in wine for 1 hour.

Cook the stir-fry

  1. Cook garlic in oil over medium heat in a wok.

  2. Add the meat and reserve the juice.

  3. Add the tomato purée, salt, and pepper.

  4. Cook for a few minutes.

  5. Add the soy sauce while stirring the meat in the wok.

  6. Add the onions, aji strips, cilantro, and vinegar.

  7. Combine the juice from the meat.

Fry the potatoes and serve

  1. Fry the potatoes in a separate pan.

  2. Add the fried potatoes to the other ingredients.

  3. Serve the dish with white rice.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together14,076 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Garlic + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together4,517 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,798 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef tenderloin
Provides the tender meat that stays juicy when quickly stir-fried in thin strips.
Red wine
Marinade that adds acidity and flavor to the meat before cooking.
Tomatoes
Puréed into the wok to add moisture, acidity, and body to the sauce.
Soy sauce
Adds salty, savory depth to the sauce.
Potatoes
Fried strips add starch and crisp texture alongside the stir-fry.
Onions
Add sweetness and texture as they cook in the wok.

The step that matters

Frying the potatoes. Potatoes need to be fried until crisp and dry so they keep their texture when combined with the moist stir-fry; overcrowding the pan or adding them too early makes them soggy and greasy.

Flavor stand-ins for the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, red wine, garlic, onion, tomato, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Chiveabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Broccoliabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, red wine, garlic, onion, tomato, pepper, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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