LifebyC's Catalina Style Southern Cross Tri-tip
I am posting this on behalf of LifebyC who was having some trouble posting. This is LifebyC's recipe, not mine.
Catalina Style Southern Cross Tri-Tip
"In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you…" -Crosby, Stills, & Nash
I’m thrilled to share this because tri-tip is legendary on the Left Coast. That said, it’s never been my favorite. While the flavor is second to none, it’s just not as tender as other cuts of equally flavorful beef, and if you’re not careful it can be downright stringy / chewy. As Meathead writes in his original article, this muscle gets work, and it’s got a lot of connective tissue. That said, you can’t park it at 200F for 12 hours like you can with pork butt, so how do you get it tender without overcooking it? Then along came sous vide…
I call this recipe Southern Cross because it’s a) a cross between the two very best methods of cooking California’s signature tri-tip, and b) Crosby Stills and Nash pay homage to my
hometown in one of the greatest songs of all time. Thanks to Meathead and Clint Cantwell for
getting me on board the sous vide train.Try it, and “you’ll understand now why you came this
way…â€
Step 1) Obtain a nice tri-tip. If you live in California this is about as difï¬cult as ï¬nding sunshine. Elsewhere that’s not the case. Meathead’s original tri-tip article has an abundance of information on the history and anatomy of the cut. This method should prove successful with other similar cuts as well.
2) Trim the fat cap, but leave enough on to make the searing interesting and flavorful. Dry brine with Morton’s Kosher Salt. A couple hours seems to be sufï¬cient. Overnight probably wouldn’t hurt at all…
3) Set sous vide for 131F. I named my Joule "Jimmy P." Get it?! Blonder!?! Get your preferred
method for searing ripping hot. Meathead likes charcoal / hibachi style. I use a cast iron skilleton a gas grill (I know, I know, my grill grates are on the way.) Don’t dis my cast iron skillet. It’s a trooper!
4) Season with fresh ground black pepper, garlic powder, and a pinch or three of crushed red
pepper flakes. Remember to avoid double salt jeopardy if you already dry brined. If you didn’t
have time to dry brine, hit it with everything now. Only Meathead will notice the difference (well, maybe Huskee…) And… oh, all right, just dry brine it…!
5) I put a liberal amount of olive oil and butter in a cast iron skillet set to "surface of the sun"
temperature. Sear the living daylights out of the tri-tip. Both sides. Shoot for a nice, even,
medium brown. Took me a couple minutes a side. Don’t walk away. Err on the side of under
rather than over searing. You’ll be searing it again in a few hours. And watch for oil / butter
splatter. Mmmmm… smells good already!
6) Put the tri-tip in a big freezer bag. I prefer Hefty Bags to Ziplock because I think it’s easier to use the plastic slider on the lock mechanism of the Hefty Bag to squeeze virtually all the air out as it’s submerged in water. On ï¬shing / dive boats we call this remarkably simple, ingenious method "Mexican vacuum sealing" in homage to our south-of-the-border friends who taught us how to do it.
I’m a huge fan of searing BEFORE sous vide, because all those amazing flavors from the
Maillard reaction are going into the bag, too. Some recipes (and Chef Steps) recommend
adding butter and/or oil to the bag. I ï¬nd it excessive after searing in butter and oil. There’s
plenty of music at the party already.
7) Here is the tri-tip after one hour sous vide at 131F:
We are getting some moisture loss, but not excessive, and there’s a LOT more in the meat.
At three hours:
At four hours the meat appears to begin to shed noticeably more juice:
This will obviously vary quite a bit based on the size of your tri-tip, moisture and fat content, and a kazillion other variables. Like Meathead says, this is flesh, not widgets, and it will vary.
Bottom line: a few hours in sous vide seems to really make the meat more tender, and pulling it out after 3-4 hours seems to preserve most of the juiciness. When left in for six hours, previous cooks were less juicy. I’m considering saving the juice in the bag for a board sauce (it’s totally cooked and safe) but haven’t tried it yet…
8) Prepare an ice water bath. Take the tri-tip (obviously still in the freezer bag) out of the sous
vide bath and drop it in the ice water bath. Chilling it will make it take smoke much better,
prevent over-cooking, and, as inspired by Clint Cantwell’s ribeye recipe, makes the meat even more tender - and that’s even MORE important with tri-tip! I left it in the ice water bath for 90 minutes.
9) Fire up your preferred method of grilling - charcoal and wood indirect, pellets on a grill grate, etc. I’m using a Rec Tec mini @ 225F with CookinPellets Perfect Mix - Hickory, Cherry, Hard Maple & Apple.
10) Set leave-in thermometer to alarm @ 110F. This gives you time to get your sear method
scorching hot again when the alarm goes off. Pull the tri-tip @ 120F. Sear it again (I duplicated the earlier sear using butter and olive oil) and got a beautiful crust right as the meat hit 130F.
Remember this baby spent four HOURS @ 131F. I’m no Dr. Blonder but that seems more than safe to me.
11) What’s this nonsense about letting meat "rest?" Carve across the grain - much more tender and easier to chew (see Meathead’s original article). Devour!
In summation: tri-tip has a great deal of potential. It’s inexpensive and plentiful and and pretty. That said, it’s really hard to get tri-tip as tender as more expensive cuts of meat. Just grilling it, regardless of method, just doesn’t get it as tender as, say, a nice steak. Just sous-vide and sear gets it tender, but there’s none of that amazing BBQ smoke flavor. Sous vide then smoke then sear is better still.
Searing FIRST puts a lot more flavor in the sous vide bag. The sous vide does the hard work of tenderizing. The ice bath contributes further to tenderizing (expand, contract, expand) and
prepares the meat to take smoke. Then the tri-tip is ï¬nished traditionally - over indirect smoky
heat and ï¬nished with a sear.
It’s the most tender tri-tip I’ve ever eaten, and as regards crust and juiciness and flavor, well… "music is her name!"
LifebyC
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