California Tri-Tip, Santa Maria Style for Labor Day

A few days ago, my husband mentioned that I have not made Santa Maria Style Tri-Tip in a long time. He's right-- in fact, I haven't made it since January-- and I did blog about it. This recipe receives a lot of hits on GOOGLE, so it must be a very popular way of preparing this affordable cut of meat. Here it is-- it is always in a triangular shape. I paid about $5.75 a pound, so this cut cost about $13.00. This could easily feed four very hungry people, but as many as six guests. Tri-tip used to be a lot cheaper, but people caught on to this cut of meat and drove up the prices a bit.  Bummer.

I decided to make this recipe for Labor Day, and to take new photographs. So, this is a revised and updated version of how to make this popular meal.  If you don't live in California, then you might not be familiar with this cut of meat. I found an illustration and info on what tri-tip is on Wikepedia. Essentially, it's from the bottom sirloin.

Tri-tip is really popular in the Salinas Valley (California), where I live. Actually, it's popular all over California! On many weekends, I see barbecues set up in parking lots, selling this meat for fundraisers.  Typically, tri-tip is served with ranch style beans (or chili), garlic bread and a salad.  A few years ago, my husband and I were returning from a cruise to Mexico and we decided to pull into the coastal town of Santa Maria for lunch. We noticed a BBQ set up in a parking lot, and they sure were doing a brisk business selling tri-tip.  Wow! This was the best tri-tip we've ever had.

California Grill masters pride themselves  in cooking tri-tip with oak wood. This takes a lot of time, and I don't have oak wood readily available. It's not cheap! When I found this recipe in an issue of Cook's Country Magazine (part of the Cook's Illustrated family) I knew I had to make this.  Forget BBQ sauce... this is an amazing recipe! Cook's Illustrated adapted this recipe where you used wood chips, soaked in water.  You grill the tri-tip, seasoned only with salt & pepper (the Santa Maria way) and-- towards the end-- you add the wet chips to the coals to give a smoky flavor to the meat. I'm telling you, if you love to eat red meat-- this is to die for! Seriously, it's worth trying.

Santa Maria style tri-tip begins with fresh garlic. No garlic from a jar, swimming in oil for God-only-knows-how-long, please. Garlic powder doesn't cut it, either.  You need the real deal-- lucky for me, garlic is plentifully grown on Christopher Ranch in nearby Gilroy, California-- home of the famous "Gilroy Garlic Festival".  You also need olive oil and kosher salt-- not table salt, or it will be totally inedible. Kosher salt only!  I love my garlic mincer. It saves time and does the job very well, thank you.

 I love garlic. I don't think there's such a thing as too much garlic...unless you're dating. I'm married, thank goodness, so I pile it on. Fortunately, Craig loves garlic, too.  You want a paste consistency.

Poke about 20 holes all over the tri-tip and rub the garlic-salt-oil paste all over. (NOTE TO SELF: Next, time wear disposable gloves. I had a couple of cuts and the salt made it sting!) Wrap it in plastic and let it sit in the refrigerator for several hours, or even overnight. This was done at 9am, to give this about 8 hours.

In the meantime, Craig got the coals ready and I soaked some hickory chips in water (I can't seem to find oak chips, but these work fine).  I removed the meat from the fridge to bring it to room temperature.  I deviated from Cook's Country's recipe instructions-- the recipe says to sear the meat on indirect heat (coals shoved off to one side) for five minutes, and then remove the garlic with a paper towel. Why? Because garlic burns easily and turns bitter.  Phooey! That's a hassle, so this is what I did-- and it works great

I wiped off the garlic with a paper towel and then lightly seasoned the meat with garlic salt and fresh cracked pepper. Go really easy on the garlic salt, please. I'll explain why in a bit...

Over direct coals, the meat was seared for about five minutes on each side-- so it's doesn't have that wonderful crust...just yet. Carefully, the roast is removed from the grill and then damp chips are scattered over the coals. Then, the meat was moved to indirect heat (away from the coals), covered with the vents open and grilled for about 20 minutes.  Craig doesn't like rare meat, so we went for 140F-- otherwise, go for 130F if you like it red in the middle.

 It's important to let the cooked meat rest for at least ten minutes. We cover it with foil and allow the juices redistribute.

You want to cut this meat against the grain. We like our sliced a little on the thin side. How juicy does this look?

See that nice crust on the outside? Oh, yeah!  This is cooked to perfection-- good job, Craig!

I was so busy, today, making a sweet potato hash and a Mile High cake (I will post later on in the week) that I never got around to making Pioneer Woman's Ranch Style Beans (or Santa Maria beans, which I should blog about someday). Instead, I toasted some sandwich rolls and ate these as a sandwich.  Craig added mayo, fresh lettuce and fresh garden tomatoes. Me? I ate it plain, with a green salad.  Oh my!  I wish you could taste this-- infused with garlic, this is out of this world fantastic! The wood chips give the meat a nice smoky taste, just as though you had cooked this over an oak wood fire.

I know that this photo is a bit out of focus. You see, my mouth was watering for these that I just wanted to sit down and take a big bite. OMG!  Garlic... juicy... a little salty.  That's why I say, go really easy on adding garlic salt-- or leave it out completely, if you prefer.

This rocks my world. It's rocks my husband's world. We love this. Leftovers make excellent fajitas...but I think these will be in our lunch boxes tomorrow.

I hope you can find this cut of meat where you live. This is it! Just like we devoured in a Santa Maria parking lot. Wonderful memories.

We had a relaxing and wonderful Labor Day.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell all of you....My son moved out!  He's almost 21, and it was time for Mama Bird to nudge baby bird from the nest. Yep, he's settling into his own apartment, with a friend. He loves his new place. He's about 10 minutes from home.  My son will weep if he hears he missed out on this dinner.  I wonder what he's eating? Mac 'N Cheese, no doubt. From a box.

We mom's know how to lure our kids to visit, don't we?  I'm sure he'll show up for Sunday Suppers when he grows tired of bachelor cooking.

 I hope all of you enjoyed your weekend,

Perfect Crispy Potatoes & Happy Labor Day

 
Potatoes are one of my favorite side dishes-- boiled, roasted, mashed and sometimes fried. Spuds rule in my kitchen, and they are a staple.  I have mastered the art of perfect creamy garlic mashed potatoes.  I have had great luck with one of my most viewed posts for heavenly (and healthy) version of "Garlic Oven Fries".  "Pioneer Woman's Crash Potatoes are hugely popular on our dinner table, too. Thanks to Food Network's newest star, Melissa d'Arabian,   I have found a fool-proof way to master crispy potatoes. I have an easy recipe for stove top cracked fingerling potatoes that has been my faithful busy work night "go to", but I think this recipe has moved up a few notches as one my favorite way to serve potatoes.

What's so special about this recipe? I'd say it's more of a technique that involves three cooking steps-- saute', steam and roast.  I made this side dish to accompany Melissa's Crispy Skinned Easy Chicken a l'Orange.

You will need a skillet with a lid and a baking sheet-- unless you have an oven-proof skillet that is large enough to spread an even layer of potatoes. I'll show you what I mean in a moment.  Preheat your oven to 375F.

Start with three Russett potaotes (you could easily substitute Yukon Golds or Red Bliss potaotes, skin on).
Peel them, and dice them into uniform cubes-- like this:

Next, coat your skillet with olive oil-- not too much-- and heat on medium-high heat. Add the diced potatoes and season with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. NOTE: I never use table salt for cooking. If you do use table salt, try kosher. You will never go back!
Saute' for about five minutes...

Next, turn the pan to HIGH add about 3 Tablespoons of water, stir and cover the pan with the lid.
Steam the potatoes until the water evaporates, about 3 or 4 more minutes. (Every 1 to 2 minutes, open the lid long enough to stir the potatoes so they don't stick.)Lower the heat to medium, and saute another 1 to 2 minutes until all traces of water are gone.

 Now, add a pat of unsalted butter (no margarine, please... butter has better flavor). Gently stir the potatoes to melt the butter and to coat the potatoes.  I added a little bit of garlic powder-- about 1/2 teaspoon for extra flavor.

 

Spread the potatoes out on a baking sheet. For easier cleanup, I like to coat my baking sheets with foil, sprayed with a little olive oil spray. Bake in the oven until the potatoes are crisp and browned to your liking, about 15 to 25 minutes depending on how dark you want them.

 If you click on this photo, you will see how these potatoes were sizzling hot.  I decided to garnish these with a little fresh parsley, from my herb garden. (Next time, I will try adding bacon and onions...maybe even chopped bell peppers) for a different version.)

 

These made a perfect side dish for this Easy Chicken a l'Orange dish.

Using this same technique, I made an excellent sweet potato hash recipe that I will post in the next few days. I can't wait to show you-- but it's Labor Day and I am busy preparing Santa Maria Style Tri-Tip (with newer and better photos) and Pioneer Woman's Beans. For dessert-- I've got about 50 possibilites to choose from.

To those of you who are using today to rest from your job-- enjoy! My thoughts and prayers are with the multitudes of people who are still looking for employment. I know a few, personally...  I hope your prayers are answered soon.

Happy Labor Day!

Easy Crispy Skinned Chicken a l'Orange and Parisian Style Crispy Potatoes

I have so missed not being able to blog recipes as often as I would like. In fact, I made this wonderful and E-A-S-Y dinner last Sunday. This recipe, is definitely a keeper for several reasons. It's economical, it's so simple and it's very good.

This is the second episode from Food Network's Melissa d'Arabian that I've watched. Her show is called $10.00 dinners and I have to say that I am enjoying her show. I can relate with her, since I consider myself to be a home cook, with no formal culinary training. Did I make this meal for $10.00? If you don't include the cost of many of the pantry items, I could. Well, let me show you:

Here are the simple ingredients: Orange juice concentrate, chicken breasts--bone in, skin on, honey and salt & pepper. Three chicken breasts cost about $8.25. I admit that I'm a little picky about using frozen concentrate, so I paid about $2.75 for this version, that doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup. The honey cost $6.00, from a local bee keeper right down the street where I live. I'm a little over budget, but I only used 1/2 cup of the orange juice and the rest is in the freezer for another time. I only used 4 Tablespoons of honey, so I guess you could say I was within budget of how much of the ingredients I used... now, for the sauce.

Roll up your sleeves. In a pot, pour 1/2 cup of frozen orange juice concentrate (no need to thaw), 4 Tablespoons honey, some salt and pepper. Yes, that's it! You won't even break a sweat.
TIP: I poured olive oil in my measuring cup and poured the oil into the skillet I was going to use. Next, I pour in the honey into the same measuring cup-- the honey slides right out!

Bring the sauce to a boil, for three minutes, turn off the heat and set aside.

Season the chicken with kosher salt & fresh cracked pepper. Always be careful when working with raw chicken, of course. These chicken breasts are resting on a silicone cutting sheet, on top of my wooden board. That way, I don't cross-contaminate and I wash the plastic mat in the dishwasher. You want the chicken to come to room temperature-- 15-30 minutes, tops.
TIP: Melissa reminds us that we should buy chicken on sale and freeze it. To quick thaw frozen chicken I never use the microwave. I soak chicken (I use a Food Saver bag) in a bowl of water. Within 30 minutes, it's safely thawed.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Heat an oven-proof skillet with 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil (you can use olive oil, but when I am searing I prefer vegetable oil because it has a higher smoke point). The idea is to sear the chicken and get that beautiful crispy skin. The secret? Be sure that you chicken is bone dry...pat, pat, pat with towels to get all moisture off. Bring the oil hot enough to where it ripples, but it's not smoking. Put the chicken in, skin down, and sear the meat for 3 minutes (not moving it around). Flip the chicken over and glaze the chicken with a brush-- don't POUR the sauce on (or the skin can become soggy).

Put the oven-proof skillet into the oven and bake/roast for about 15-20 minutes. We want an internal temperature between 160F-170F. Halfway through I carefully (remember, the handle is hot) removed pulled out the skillet and glazed the chicken again.

I'd say the chicken is cooked. Look at the pan sauce! Remove the skillet, and set the chicken onto a carving board and cover with foil-- let is rest for about 10 minutes.

What I like about this recipe, is that there is nothing to deglaze and no sauce to reduce. It's already passing my "test" that when I ran a spatula through it, it separated. This really is a tasty sauce.

I'm still working on my "removing bones from chicken skills"-- but I managed to cut out the breast bone and then I sliced the chicken breasts. Melissa was right-- I had four generous portions.

I plated this with Melissa's Perfect Crisp Potatoes and Haricot Vert with a compound butter of tarragon and herbs. The entire meal took less than an hour, from start to dining room table.

Melissa, you did it! The chicken was really moist, and the sauce... mmm-mmm-mmm. My son does not like chicken breast meat at all. He ate this dinner and said it was incredibly delicious.

One last thing about this recipe-- buying chicken breasts with bone-in and skin on is more economical, and I do believe that the bone keeps the meat juicier. I have a confession to make, though-- can you guess? I don't like chicken skin. Still, I loved the recipe-- I ate every single bite...except for the skin.

...and, I really loved this recipe, too! These potatoes are so easy to make, non-greasy and very Parisian. I'm going to tease you, and post how to make these on a separate post.

I'm officially a fan of Melissa d'Arabian. I made both of these recipes in under an hour. Truthfully, I would serve this dinner to company. I also think that the sauce would be delicious with pork tenderloin-- and I definitely plan to test that theory.

Enjoy!

The Tomato Basil Soup that almost wasn't...

This is my first entry, of what I hope will be many for "Souper Sundays" with Deb at Kahakai Kitchen.

Last week, I posted photos of our tomatoes that are fully ripe and more than ready for picking. No problem, I thought! I taught myself how to can five different flavors of homemade jam. I felt as though I'd earned my stripes as a "blanch and peel" pro to remove peach and apricot skins. I figured it would be super easy for me to make a tomato basil soup, from scratch...from our garden.

With great anticipation , I picked tomatoes and I admired my basketful of these beauties. I looked at what I hadn't picked, and I didn't even make a dent. I have a lot of tomatoes left to be picked.

I searched for a recipe, but many of them listed canned tomatoes as an ingredient. Now, why would I want to used canned tomatoes, when I have a glut of these red and juicy orbs just waiting to fill a soup bowl? I have been told that one of my signature dishes is my homemade soups. I think homemade soup is so easy to make-- and I've blogged about a few from last winter and spring. I decided I could make up my own recipe by following a basic "cream of ...." soup.

So, I selected a bowlful of Early Girls (lamenting that I didn't have any romas) and I decided I could make up my own recipe.
But first-- I started a pot of water boiling and blanched the tomatoes for one minute. Then, I shocked them in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking. Just as I had hoped, the skin had cracked and I could just slip it off...wrong! I forgot to core them!! It wasn't easy, mind you. I admit it-- I want to find shortcuts and I was not in the mood to cut stems out of blanched tomatoes. Fine. I'll use one of my many kitchen gadgets!

I have touted the virtues of my beloved OXO food mill several times on this blog. It makes perfect mashed potatoes and I recently discovered that it removed the majority of seeds when I made homemade raspberry jam. So, I figured that tomatoes would be no problem for the food mill to pulverize and I'd be on my way to making soup in no time at all.

Wrong! I ended up with juice and a lot of clumpy tomatoes. This was not going very well...

Next, I dragged out my trusty Cuisinart to break up the tomatoes a bit. Just a few pulses, and I'm liking what I see.

It worked! I put the chopped up tomatoes back into the food mill, and I was left with skins and seeds and it yielded 5 cups of crushed tomatoes. Whew! My kitchen, however, was a disaster area and I was breaking into a sweat. Mark my words-- I have no intention of doing this again. I mean it. While homemade marinara sauce, from garden tomatoes sounds heavenly... it's not for me. This was far too much work!

Now that I had the tomatoes, it was time to make the soup. This was Easy Street, I'll tell you.

In a large pot, I simply sauteed chopped onion with a little olive oil, salt & pepper and I cut fresh herbs from my garden-- thyme, parsley & oregano.
TIP: I save the rubber bands that comes with fresh asparagus or celery and use these tie my "bouquet garni". These are safe to boil.
I also grabbed a box of chicken stock and I was good to go.

I was going to add fresh garlic, but then I realized... I had frozen some basil pesto that I had made a couple of weeks ago, so removed a cube of that from the freezer. Brilliant!

I added the 5 cups of crushed tomatoes, one box of chicken stock, the herbs and about 2 Tablespoons of basil pesto, and about 1 tsp of sugar. I let that simmer, on low, for about 30 minutes.

I fished out the herbs and tossed them. I could have used an immersion blender to make the tomatoes really smooth, but I kind of wanted a rustic chunky texture (or, was I being lazy?)

I turned off the heat and added some heavy cream-- about 1/4 cup...not too much. Served with a dollop of creme fraiche, this was very good. Way too much work, but still it was a great tribute to my husband's dedication in growing our tomatoes. I'm going to try this again, but I'm going to see if roasting tomatoes is going to be a whole lot easier.

This recipe made 8 bowls. I froze half of this for the first day that we get rain. After our unseasonably hot weather, I'm ready!

Fall is on the way!