Santa Maria Tri-Tip: Poor Man’s Prime Rib

Settled by Mexican cowboys called vaqueros, the beautiful coastal town of Santa Maria in California’s Central Coast has an international reputation for the local specialty, tri-tip steak, the unique grill invented to cook it, and the clever way it’s carved to make it more tender.

The story goes that in the 1950s, a butcher named Bob Schutz was overstocked on ground beef and stew meat, so he took a triangular muscle from the bottom sirloin usually destined for chopping or grinding and put it on his store’s rotisserie. He and his staff were shocked at how flavorful and tender it was. He called it tri-tip and started promoting it as a barbecue meat.

The tri-tip is from the bottom sirloin just in front of the hip. A typical tri-tip is about 8 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 3 inches thick in the center, tapers at the ends, and weighs 1½ to 2 pounds (see photo, right). It is available in every grocery and butcher shop in southern California, but it is hard to find elsewhere. If you don’t live on the left coast, your butcher should be able to special order it. Tell him it is the tensor fasciae latae muscle from the bottom sirloin, number 185C in the North American Meat Processors Association (NAMP) book The Meat Buyer’s Guide (the butcher’s bible).

It has big, beefy flavor and it is very lean, so it can be on the chewy side if you don’t cook and slice it properly. But cook and slice it the way they do in Santa Maria, and you can have a piece of meat almost as tender and every bit as juicy as any cut on the steer. I call it the Poor Man’s Prime Rib.

The Santa Maria–style grill (see page 84) is perfect for this cut. It has a grate that can be raised or lowered with a wheel-and-pulley system so the grillmaster can control the heat on this thick hunk o’ flesh, crucial to getting it done properly without burning it to a crisp. The fuel of choice in Santa Maria is red oak logs, but you can conquer it easily with charcoal and gas.

The meat is prepped with minimal seasoning, and served without sauce, so the big, beefy flavor reigns. It is almost always taken off the grill when medium-rare and accompanied by grill-toasted bread to mop up the juices, a salsa like pico de gallo, beans, macaroni and cheese, salad, and the excellent local wines. I like to make sandwiches with toasted buns or use slices to top a salad.

Makes 4 servings

Takes 5 minutes to prep and 45 to 90 minutes to cook, depending on how you set up your grill

1. Prep. Trim off any surface fat and silverskin from the steak if necessary. Sprinkle with salt and dry brine 1 to 2 hours in the refrigerator before cooking.

2. Just before cooking, sprinkle the meat with pepper, garlic powder, and paprika in roughly equal amounts and massage them into the meat. If you have some Butcher Block Seasoning (page 173) on hand, now’s the time to reach for it. Don’t worry about overseasoning. The steak will be sliced very thin for serving, so each slice will have only a small lip of flavorful crust.

3. Fire up. Set up the grill in a two-zone configuration and get the indirect zone up to about 225°F.

4. Cook. In Santa Maria, where the grills have a built-in elevator, cooks raise the meat up high and flip it frequently during the cooking, which typically lasts as long as an hour. Unless you have a Santa Maria–style grill, first put the meat on the indirect-heat side of your grill with the thick end closer to the heat, close the lid, and turn the steak every 20 minutes or so until the center hits about 110°F. This can take 30 to 45 minutes.

5. Move the meat over direct high heat for about 5 minutes per side, or until it gets a nice even dark sear. Take it up to 130°F.

6. Serve. Here’s the trick to carving this steak: Begin by slicing it in half through the center (see photo, below left).

 

7. Rotate each half and cut it from the tip to the cut end, across the grain, in 3/8- to ½-inch-thick slices (see photo, above right). Cutting across the grain ensures that the meat will be easier to chew.

8. Fan the slices on a platter, pour the juices on top, and serve.