It's officially grill season, and though I love my burgers and kebabs, there are times when a juicy steak is just what the grillmaster ordered. Though a T-bone steak is my favorite cut for grilling, it's hardly within my budget to feed the whole crew.
Recipe included with this story: Grilled, Spice-rubbed Tri-Tip Roast.
Enter the tri-tip roast. This triangular cut comes from the sirloin primal muscle, and though it's from a less-tender part of the steer, it's naturally marbled and capped with a moisture-giving cap of fat. When it's grilled to rare or medium-rare and sliced thin against the grain, it has all the flavor and juiciness of a pricier steakhouse cut.
A tri-tip roast varies in size from 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 pounds, so it can feed from four to eight people. At around $5 a pound for conventionally raised beef, a bit more for organic, it's a steak-lover's bargain.
On the East Coast, the roast is trimmed and cut into thin-ish Newport steaks. Out west, it's frequently sold whole. It first gained notice on this coast as a Santa Maria steak or roast, named for the central California coastal town where it was often rubbed with a kicky spice mix and grilled.
A tri-tip roast comes either untrimmed, with a thick, solid layer of fat on one side, or trimmed, with no outside fat left. Though the fat will help keep the roast moist, it can also melt and cause some serious flare-ups on the grill. I recommend you trim the fat yourself so it's only a thin ( 1/4-inch) layer.
The meat is well-marbled, so there really is little worry of drying out unless you overcook it; tri-tip is best when served rare or medium-rare. Beyond that it can become tough (think London broil, from the same primal).
Because this is a fairly thick cut of meat, it's important to let it rest at room temperature for an hour so that the meat will cook evenly throughout. If the meat goes directly from the refrigerator to the grill, the center will remain cold and raw while the outside burns.
Since the meat does tend to drip fat and it's a few inches thick in places, it's a good idea to sear it quickly and then use the indirect method to finish cooking it. To do this, keep half the grill hot and keep the other side cool so that the meat can slowly roast in the ambient heat of the grill with no flames below it.
The meat will continue to cook up to 5 degrees after it's removed from the grill, so you'll want to take the meat off the grill a few degrees lower than your desired temperature (see accompanying recipe for doneness temperatures.)
Once the meat is done, always let it rest 10 to 15 minutes, lightly tented with foil, to let the meat finish cooking and encourage the juices to redistribute. Once the roast has reached the desired temperature, slice the meat against the grain, meaning carve the roast perpendicular to the direction of the meat fibers. This helps make the meat more tender and easier to cut and chew. Add a grill-baked potato, a salad and a glass of red wine or a beer, and you've got a steakhouse treat without the expense-account price.
Ivy Manning
is a cookbook author and food writer. Visit her
at
.
If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
