This Week's Menu: Smoked Tri Tip Roast and Stuffed Pasilla Chiles

Changing it up a bit this week by focusing on a side dish instead of breakfast and giving you (reluctantly, I might add) one of my best recipes. It's not quick or easy but, darn, is it good.

It's my version of our Golden State's signature barbecue entree, smoked tri tip.  You'll love it!

Super Side Dish: Stuffed Pasilla Chiles

Dinner: Smoked Tri Tip Roast

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

DINNER: Smoked Tri Tip Roast

Texas has it's saucy version of barbecue, Memphis has its rubs, and Kansas City it's smoke.  All three are hard to get good versions of here in California but we do have an ace up our sleeve.

My home of the Golden State has its own style of barbecue, smoked tri tip.  

It's a part of the cow that used to be ground up, or even just thrown away sometimes, until a butcher at the Von's in Santa Maria came up with this triangular cut.  It's a bit tough to start but cooks on the Central Coast figured out that smoking it came up with a tenderizing and tasty way to serve it.

You can now find tri tip being served up in every corner of the state on weekends at fairs, farmers markets, church group fund raisers, and on almost every corner of Santa Maria.

This is a meal I reserve for special occasions. It takes quite a bit more to prepare and cook than the other recipes you'll find on this blog but it is well worth the results and you can have very good leftovers for days.

INGREDIENTS
2 or 3 tri tip roasts - minimum grade of USDA Choice, Prime if you can swing it.
1 tablespoon Kosher salt 
1 tablespoon pepper
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
16 oz pineapple juice
16 oz orange juice
1/2 pound hardwood chips (hickory, oak, or mesquite)

PREPARATION

The day before, put the roasts in a sealable plastic bowl and fill with a 50/50 mix of orange and pineapple juice. Seal and put in the refrigerator overnight.

Put the wood chips in a bucket and fill with water, let sit overnight.

RUB

Mix the cayenne, paprika, mustard, and onion powder together.

COOKING

Drain the pineapple and orange juice into a small sauce pan. Simmer on low for about an hour. This can be used as a glaze when the meat is done.

Sprinkle the salt and pepper over all surfaces of the meat.

Apply the rub thoroughly on all surfaces of the meat.

Drain the water from the chip bucket so that you only have soaked chips left in it. In a smoker or a charcoal grill, put a ring of charcoal around the edge. Don't make a full circle but leave about a quarter of the circumference empty. It should resemble a Greek omega symbol - Ω

Put a layer of wet wood chips on top of the charcoal.

Light each end of the ring. I put about ten briquettes in a starter chimney and and then put about half of the burning charcoal on each end of the ring.  This will burn slowly around the ring but give enough of the temperature to cook (you're shooting for 250 degrees F).

The wood will also help regulate the temperature along with providing the smoke needed for flavor.

The meat all goes in the center, with no direct heat underneath them.

It's a slow process, maybe two hours for one roast and an hour for each roast you add to that. A meat thermometer will help you monitor the progress. Keep the smoker or grill covered, check once an hour or so. Remember that each time you remove the lid, you'll be adding 15 minutes to cooking time so do this sparingly.

You're looking for an internal temperature of 140 - 150 degrees F for medium rare. Once done, remove to a platter, cover with foil for 10 minutes before serving.

We like to serve it as a sandwich with my wife's homemade sourdough bread with a little jack cheese...

...or as an entry, as shown above.

Darryl
Copyright 2016 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved.

This Week's Sunday Menu: PrimeTri Tip Steak with Roasted Potatoes with Bacon and Eggs

Meat and potatoes...delicious ones...for those of us on a low-sodium diet.

The entree for this week's dinner is some fantastic tri tip steak. USDA Prime that I found for $7.99 per pound. Great deal.

Breakfast uses our standard scrambled eggs recipe but we're cooking some delicious Danish bacon

Get the recipes below:

Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs and Bacon (for an added treat, cook the eggs in the bacon grease after you cook that).

Dinner: Tri Tip Steaks and Roasted Potatoes

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Low Sodium Tri Tip Steak

We're returning to the barbecue this week for our Sunday entree. It's cloudy, cool, and rain is on the way but I think I have time to beat it.

Recently, just before Thanksgiving, I got the big "D" diagnosis...type 2 diabetes. Now, I have to be wary of what I eat and drink. Funny, though, since I've started monitoring my glucose, I've only exceeded the upper limit twice. Once when I had a cup of white rice with some peanut-sauce beef satay and the other when I had a flour-tortilla wrapped pork burrito.

Lesson learned: avoid white rice and flour tortillas. Rice is easy since I'm not such a fan anyway. I'll miss those flour tortillas, though (corn tortillas don't have the same effect at all on me, thank God).

Jan, the diabetes nurse at my doctor's office, has provided me with reams of flyers and sheets on how to eat better. One that really struck my fancy was what spices you can use to replace salt in different foods. That led to the rub used in the recipe below.

While I used literally just a pinch of salt, the meal came out delicious.  I had a little leftover rub that I put in the bag to spice up my usual roasted fingerling potato dish that I served on the side.

This meal also benefits from the hiqh quality of the meat...I found some exceptionally well-marbled USDA Prime tri tip steak on sale at Costco for only $7.99 a pound. Couldn't pass up that deal (although I can hear nurse Jan in my mind "LEAN meat, idiot!").

Quiet, Jan...it's Sunday.

INGREDIENTS

4 medium 1.5 inch thick tri tip steaks, about 8 ounces each
Worcester sauce (or pineapple juice, if you want to take the sodium content down further without sacrificing taste)

RUB:
1/2 teaspoon each of the following -
Mustard powder
Onion powder
Marjoram
Nutmeg
Paprika
Sage
Cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon each of black and white pepper

Put steaks into as small of a resealable bowl as you can find. Sprinkle each side with just a very small pinch of Kosher salt and a few drops of Worcester sauce. You can also replace the Worcester sauce with a generous splash of pineapple juice.

Rub the meat generously on both sides with the rub. Seal in bowl and let marinate 3-4 hours minimum (if you use pineapple juice, it's better to marinate for at least 8 hours).

On a barbecue, over hot coals, cook on each side for three minutes for a sear. Move to indirect heat and cook 5-6 minutes on each side for medium rare.

Remove on a platter and cover with foil. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Recipes for a Cheapskate: Smoked Tri Tip

So the Cheapskate got a new smoker for his birthday. Time to break it in.

To keep this with our gardening theme, I picked some zucchini and the first two ears of corn for the season to throw in with the roast.

INGREDIENTS
4-5 Pound trip tip roast, USDA Choice or better
Pineapple juice
Lemon Juice
Rub (here's a recipe)

Cooking is simple but time consuming.

First, is the marinade. I cover the roast in pineapple juice with another cup of lemon juice thrown in. Then, I let sit in the refrigerator overnight. It's important to get a good piece of meat with good marbling. This one is USDA Prime but Choice would be good too.

Once the marinade is done, I coat with a rub that my wife makes. I put a semi-circle of charcoal and wet wood (mesquite in this case) in the bottom of the smoker.  I'll light only one end so it will slowly burn in a circle like a fuse.

I let smoke for about 4 hours, monitoring the meat temp with a probe thermometer.  When done, I slice and serve with the corn and zucchini, as pictured at the top.

 

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved