Lomo Saltado

Cut Beef flank across the grain into strips about a finger wide and as long as your thumb. Trim any gristle but leave the fat — it carries the char. Slice Garlic thin and julienne Ginger. Keep them apart from the vegetables, they go in first. Cut Red onions into thick wedges and Tomatoes into fat wedges. Everything going into the wok must be the same size so it cooks in one pass.

⚠ Tip: Cut it while it's still fridge-cold: cold meat gives you clean, even strips instead of ragged edges.

Stir together 3 tbsp Soy sauce, 2 tbsp Red wine vinegar, 2 tbsp Aji amarillo paste and a good pinch each of Salt and Ground black pepper. Once the wok is screaming there is no time to measure anything, so park the bowl by the stove.

⚠ Tip: Aji amarillo paste is sold in jars in Latin American shops or online; it is fruity and only moderately hot, and it is what makes the sauce taste Peruvian rather than like a generic beef stir-fry.

Get Oven chips golden and crisp — deep-fried, air-fried, whatever you've got — and keep them hot and uncovered. They go in at the very last second, so they must already be done. Cook Long-grain rice plain — no butter, no stock, just salted water. It's there to catch the pan juices, not to compete.

⚠ Tip: Unsalted chips. Salted ones turn the whole dish salty once the soy hits.

Set your biggest wok or frying pan over high heat and let it get properly, dangerously hot — until a drop of water evaporates on contact. Then add 3 tbsp Neutral oil and swirl it around. Add the beef in a single layer and leave it alone for 45 sec. Then stir-fry hard for another 45 sec, until the strips are browned at the edges but still rosy inside. Tip it onto a plate.

⚠ Tip: Do this in two batches if your pan is small. Crowding the wok steams the beef grey instead of searing it brown.

⚠ Tip: If it starts to steam, the pan is too full or not hot enough — pull some out.

Use half the oil left in the hot wok (top it up with a splash of fresh if it looks dry), then add Garlic and Ginger. Stir for about 15 sec — you want it fragrant and just turning gold, not brown.

Throw in the onion and tomato and toss over the highest heat for 1 min. The onion should keep its crunch and the tomato should just start to collapse and release juice.

⚠ Tip: Don't walk away. Thirty seconds too long and you have stewed vegetables.

Return the beef and any juices, pour in the sauce and toss for 30 sec until everything is glossy and the vinegar smell burns off into something sweet and sharp. Taste and adjust salt.

Kill the heat. Fold in the chips so they soak up just enough sauce but stay crisp, then scatter the torn Coriander over the top and serve immediately with the cooked rice and Limes wedges on the side.

⚠ Tip: Plate it the second the chips go in — lomo saltado waits for nobody.