We got back from our road trip on Saturday and I had today off to run errands and what-not. Having a little time this afternoon, I thought I'd grill some Santa Maria Tri-Tip. When I picked them up at the butcher's, he asked what I was going to to with them. When I said Santa Maria grilling, he said "Ah, you from California" Sure enough; he grew up in Bakersfield just over the Tehachapi mountains from me.
We had this quite often growing up; it's a relatively cheap cut of meat that you can dress up pretty easily. Basically you use a garlic based rub grill it. There is a basting sauce of garlic infused olive oil and red wine vinegar. Uh, yeah, if you don't like garlic you won't like this. I transcribed this recipe from the Food Network site; any mistakes are mine.
The recipe calls for 2 x 3lb tri-tip roasts; those are pretty big and I can't find them here. I found that 2 1.75 lb roasts work very well though you may want to reduce cutting time.
First I rubbed it and put the oil and vinegar in the Vita-Mix to get a good emulsion.
I used the gas grill today with grill grates.
If I had more time and our deck wasn't torn up I would have used the Weber kettle.
On they go; after 15 minutes I flip and change positions and baste.
Turn, swap, and baste again after 15 minutes; then repeat every 5 minutes until they register 145*
All done; let rest for 10 minutes under a loose foil tent; then cut across the grain very thin.
Yum
