If you ever decide to purchase an entire cow and cook it at your leisure over the course of <mumpfhymump> years (and I sincerely hope that you do), you’ll notice something. Every chucklehead on the planet has a bright idea about steaks. It’s the rare/insane/dangerous/professional that has any ideas about anything else.
Today, I’m cooking a Sirloin Tip Steak. Somehow, three of these have migrated to the top of my freezer, and I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with them. But they’re like the red-headed stepchild of beef. Nobody talks about them. Nobody, it seems, cooks them much. This will be a challenge.
I like a challenge.
Being called Sirloin Tip Steaks, one would naturally assume they’re off the sirloin primal, right? Yeah, not so much. They’re actually taken from the round, which is a much tougher, more flavorful neighborhood. Like West Philadelphia.
So it stands to reason that I can’t treat these like a steak from Bel Air. I gotta do stuff. But what?
In general, tougher cuts benefit from long, slow cooking times to transmute all that sexy collagen into gelatin. And, upon examination, these steaks appear to have a fair bit o’ connective tissue on them.
I’ve decided I’m gonna treat these guys like ribs. Dry rubbed, then cooked low and slow with some wood smoke over several hours. That process turns ribs into a meltingly lovely experience, let’s see if it’ll do the same here. The wood: hickory. The grill: prepped. Time to get moving.
Dry rub is again Meathead’s Big Bad Beef Rub. I have some left over from last time I did ribs.
Temp is 225 or close enough for jazz. A little olive oil, dry rub, and the steaks go on. Time to cut some trees.
No, that’s not a metaphor. I really do have some trees on my property that I need to cut down.
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Three hours later and my Paul Bunyan urges fulfilled, I check the steaks. Temp is at 164ish, which is well above well done, but south of where we’d want to be for ribs.
But we aren’t making ribs.
Decision time: pull them now, or wait until they’re at a rib-ly 180?
We have two steaks. We can do both.
First steak off at around 165.
The steak is well done, but not crazy burnt. Gray throughout, with a nice crust. This is to be expected from a rib-ly preparation. The rub, as it did on the ribs, crusted well. There may not be enough connective tissue in this cut to fully achieve the supertender, falling off the bone-ness of ribs. There’s no bone, for one thing.
We nosh on this like finger food.
Twenty minutes later, I pull the other steak, circa 180 degrees. It’s definitely more tender, though I’m not sure it’s an order of magnitude more so. It could also be this particular steak. But the piece left on the heat longer benefited from it.
Note: It's dark.
Definitely better.
Verdict: The steaks are more done than I’d prefer them, without any of the alchemy that turns ribs into awesome. Ordinarily, this would be a bigger deal. However, right now, I have a pregnant wife who is steadfastly avoiding any rareness in her meats at all. In addition, she likes her steaks a little more done than I do. So we’ll call this one, if not an overwhelming, blissful success, at least not a failure.
Next time, however, I think I’d try a different cooking method. Knowing what I do now, I’m curious what fast and dry will do for me.
The Wife Says: I will eat this for lunch all week. Me likey.
Up Next: Rocket man!
Whoa, close call.
I wanted to a nice cut of beef out of the freezer for the triumphant return of two family members who’ve been gone for 5 weeks. Rummaged around and thought, Mmmm, Sirloin Tip, that must be in the Front Row! Then I saw this post and now I know better.
Trouble is, I got the meat out a few hours ago. It’s starting to defrost. Do I cook it for Triumphal Return anyway, maybe braise it like you did the cross rib steak…? Or do I eat the sirloin tip at a different meal and go back to the freezer and get out the rib eyes, which i was kinda saving for an even bigger event, like…i don’t know what…maybe the end of State Worker Furloughs? Conunmdrums, conundrums.
Hmm. Decisions, decisions.
Well, one of the things I hope to do next with this cut is grill it hot and fast, and see how that works. Most of my research suggests a marinade of some variety, as the steaks are crazy lean. If I were in your shoes, that’s probably what I’d do.
Just don’t treat it like ribs.
That little band of connective tissue wasn’t enough to do what I was hoping.
Of course, ribeyes are always lovely…
Let me know what you did and how it turned out!
Part of the thing that makes the ribs happen the way they do is the fat involved. That’s why you can get away with a dry-heat method and still achieve something moist and delightful. These little bastards are, as you said, hella lean. Something that might help with the cooking of said steaks (since they have to be well done and all) is to break out some archaic cooking technique and lard them. This used to be done in a couple of ways, either slits were cut in the meat and little batons of fat were shoved rudely into them (what I would suggest) or fat was threaded into a larding needle and sort of injected into the meat. If you can lay your hands on some high-quality slab bacon you can use it to not only keep the meat more moist but also to flavor it. If you wanted to get really tricksy about it, you could also get some caul fat and wrap the whole thing in that after it has been larded. It’ll work to baste the meat as it cooks and will hold in the fat from the bacon, thus retaining that moisture you want.
Surely you won’t be dealing with this cut again soon, but the technique is a good thing to have in your pocket when dealing with lean cuts of meat.
Hope the family is doing well. Say hi to the little lady for me.
Thanks, Eben!
I will definitely stuff my next sirloin tip steak with bacon. I am always looking for more places to stuff bacon, and the fact that this particular Bacon Receptacle happens to be food is a plus.
And caul fat? Hell yeah, caul fat! I’m all about this. I need to find a caul fat guy.
By the way? I could totally do that job. I could be a caul fat guy. Crazy Jared’s Caul Fat Emporium. Caulfateria. I need to make t-shirts.