Fundación:

Salsa de Saltado

Saltado Sauce

A saltado “sauce” doesn’t really exist in traditional Peruvian cooking. It’s what I call the base seasoning that we use at my restaurants to make saltados. Instead of prepping and adding seasonings like ají amarillo, ginger, and red wine vinegar as you fry the other ingredients, my saltado sauce does the work for you in one or two spoonfuls. Make the sauce ahead, keep it in the fridge, and you’re ready to go. The pureed garlic is worth taking the time to make. It melts into the sauce and can take the heat required to stir-fry without burning. Substitute tamari for the soy sauce if you’d like to make a wheat-free version.

The secrets to a really good stir-fry are your sauce and a really hot pan. That’s it. It wasn’t until I opened my first restaurant, Mo-Chica, that I realized how easy it was to unintentionally mess up those two very simple components—even in a restaurant kitchen. My chefs tried hard, but most weren’t Peruvian, and something was always off. Too much garlic one time, not enough ají amarillo heat at the back of your throat on another try. The same thing was happing with big pots of estofados, or stews made with different aderezos, mixes of seasonings that are the most important flavor base of the dish. Cooking is a lot like learning a new language. When you learn something from the time you are born, it is second nature. As an adult, you have to really pay attention, and sometimes turn your thinking inside out to get to a new place.

My solution was to make a stir-fry “sauce” that my chefs could spoon up and drop into the saltado and several braise bases for the stews. They’re essentially my personal aderezo (see sidebar, page 152) for each dish, the Peruvian version of a cook’s secret cooking sauce.

• 2 tablespoons pureed garlic (page 37)
• 2 tablespoons pureed ginger (page 37) or finely zested ginger
• 1 tablespoon ají amarillo paste, store-bought or homemade (page 34)
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce, preferably a good-quality Japanese brand, or 1½ tablespoons tamari
• 5 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Shake up all of the ingredients in a small jar, or stir them together in another storage container. Cover and refrigerate the sauce for up to 1 week.