Sunday, September 18, 2011.
Playing Around With Tri-Tip.
I intended to repair the door on the toolshed, but the battery on my cordless drill has died for good, and my ancient plug-in drill (still giving me fine service since 1973) is nowhere to be found.
At Rouse's yesterday I saw a cut of beef that's not often seen in our area. At least not under the name it goes by elsewhere: tri-tip. The California butcher who started selling it whole instead of ground gave it that name, and to this day it's more popular on the West Coast than anywhere else. I'm asked about it on the radio once or twice a year, and I usually beg ignorance, because I've never cooked it.
I had to pull out my beef books to see what I was dealing with. I had it in my mind that it came from the chuck, or nearby. Wrong. It's from the bottom sirloin--another phrase that didn't ring a bell. (Logically enough, it's under the top sirloin, which I have cooked a few times.) It's triangular both from the side and front views. My meat book (title: The Meat Book) says that it's highly versatile, and can be cooked as a roast, as steaks, or smoked for barbecue.
The one I picked up was pretty and well-streaked with fat. I sliced it across the grain a quarter-inch thick, and marinated it in a near-paste of olive oil, curry powder, cumin, crushed red pepper, a near-puree of garlic, marjoram, a little lemon juice and Tabasco soy sauce. It sat in that concoction for about three hours.
I took them out and pounded them a little. That proved unnecessary. However, I was right in not firing up the Big Green Egg to do the cooking, because on a hot grilled the slices cooked in only about two minutes per side or less.
I left the meat dripping with the marinade, to get a good sear on both sides. I thought about adding some kind of sauce to the beef, but one bite told me that, if anything, the meat was already a shade over-flavored, if there could even be such a condition. Even though there was a little red at the very center, the meat was fork-tender, or perhaps beyond. I think you could have eaten this with chopsticks, so easily did it fall apart.
We each ate eight slices, along with the extravagantly overcooked broccoli and carrots that Mary Ann likes. I was pleasantly surprised by how good the beef was. Enough to put tri-tip on my regular menu at home. I think even the kids would like this. Mary Ann certainly did, and in the days following this supper she asked me again and again when we'd cook up the rest of it. I love when this happens.
