The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science

(Nandana) #1

Tri-Tip Steak
If you’re not from Santa Maria, California, you may not
have heard of tri-tip, the large, tender, triangular muscle cut
from the bottom sirloin of a steer. If you are from Santa
Maria, you can bet your bowl of pinquito beans that you’ve
had more than your share of the cut.
It’s the primary cut used for Santa Maria–style barbecue,
a regional barbecue style that’s not well known outside of
central California and that, by some standards, wouldn’t
qualify as “real” barbecue at all. See, Santa Maria–style
barbecue is technically a fast-cooking method—that is, the
meat is cooked over an open pit burning with red oak just

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