Tri-Tip

Tri-Tip

In the late 1950s, a Safeway store manager in Santa Maria, California named Bob Schutz had a problem. He had excess ground beef and a triangular piece from the tip of the sirloin that nobody particularly wanted. He seasoned it with salt, pepper, and garlic salt, put it on a rotisserie for 45 minutes, and served it. It was so well received he started selling it as tri-tip. The ranchers and cowboys of California's Central Coast built a regional barbecue tradition around it that has been going ever since.

Meanwhile, everywhere east of the Rockies, the same cut was going into ground beef. It still largely does. One per side of beef — two per animal — butchers historically wouldn't give it display case space because they could only offer one or two at a time. Easier to grind it. That indifference kept it a regional secret for decades. France calls it aiguillette baronne and serves it whole as a roast. Germany calls it Bürgermeisterstück — the mayor's piece. Argentina knows it as colita de cuadril. Brazil calls it maminha. Every serious beef culture in the world has a name for it and treats it accordingly. The American Midwest has been putting it in hamburgers.

What you are getting is a lean, boneless, triangular roast from the bottom sirloin — clean and forward in flavor, with enough character to hold its own against any cut on the animal. Ours comes from grass fed, grass finished beef, which makes it leaner than conventional tri-tip. That leanness is not a liability. There is no fat to hide behind, which means the beef itself has to deliver.

Cook it like a steak. Sear it hard on all sides in a well heated cast iron pan to build a crust, then transfer to a 275°F oven and finish low and slow until it hits 120°F internally — roughly 20 to 30 minutes at that size. Rest it generously before you cut it. Then find the point where the two grain directions meet — tri-tip has muscle fibers running in two different directions, and that intersection is where you cut it in half. Slice each half against its own grain, thin. That step takes ten extra seconds and makes the difference between a steak worth talking about and one that makes you wonder what the fuss was about.

Salt, pepper, and nothing else the first time. The Santa Maria tradition has been right about that for seventy years.

Sold whole and priced by weight. Select the size that best suits your needs.

If tri-tip is new to you, our picanha covers similar whole-roast territory with a different cultural story behind it. And if you want to explore the same bottom sirloin neighborhood in steak form, our bavette is the natural next step.