Hold on to your butts, guys, because we’ve reached my most anticipated Nerd Month and Bryan Fuller Week post. It’s Hannibal day! Hannibal is a show I adore and still can’t believe existed. It was rare and lovely and horrifying and beautiful. It definitely wasn’t for everyone, but for those of us who loved it, the show was a treasure. So I’m pretty excited to finish out Fuller Week with a Hannibal recipe. If you watched the show, you know that there is an almost endless supply of dishes to choose from, but I went with Lomo Saltado from the second-season episode “Naka-Choko,” because it’s such a perfect, weird episode full of emotional climaxes and most importantly, contains one of my very favorite cannibal puns of the series. NBC via Psychoanalyzeme This recipe is adapted from one by Janice Poon, the food stylist on Hannibal. If you have any interest at all in food styling, you should check out her blog, because it’s amazing and you don’t have to be a Hannibal fan to appreciate the works of art she made for that show. And also, Hannibal fans should go pre-order her book, Feeding Hannibal: A Connoisseur’s Cookbook!* I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy. Okay, enough fangirling, on to the food.
Guys, Lomo Saltado is amazing. It’s a traditional Peruvian/Chinese fusion dish of stir-fried steak, onions, and tomatoes served with rice and french fries. Yes. French fries. I mean don’t you look at your boring old stir-fries and think, You know what this needs? French fries. No? Okay, me neither, but I should have been, because It. Is. Spectacular. The fries soak up all the vegetable and meat juices and turn into these amazing starchy flavor bombs when you bite into them. I would never have thought to pair potatoes and rice, but it works incredibly well. For this recipe, I baked the fries because it’s a little healthier and deep frying at home is a pain. And by baking them, you can just pop the fries in the oven and basically forget about them while you stir-fry the meat and veggies. The stir-frying process is super simple and done in batches so you don’t have to worry about some ingredients ending up under/overcooked. What you get is perfect, slightly blackened onions, incredibly tender meat, and beautifully cooked tomatoes. Then you give the fries a quick toss with the meat and veggies and serve everything over rice. It’s colorful, beautiful, and a perfect dish for date night.
Some food styling notes: If you are looking to recreate the entire Hannibal plate, I used this carrot slaw recipe from Epicurious. I don’t actually like carrot slaw, but the people to whom it was served, loved it. And in the show, it looks like Hannibal uses Treviso radicchio as a garnish. I couldn’t find any locally, so I used Chioggia radicchio and served the rice wrapped inside of it rather than in cucumber slices. And if you need a dessert, might I recommend Sanguinaccio Dolce (Senza Sangue)? Tell me, were you a “Hannibal” fan? What’s your favorite show in recent years? Lomo Saltado Nutritional Information (Does not include rice) Recipe Adapted From: Janice Poon *This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive small commission if you make a purchase using one of the links. There is absolutely no additional cost to you.
