This weekend I finally re-seasoned* the grates on my grill, and so to celebrate, I made the following meal Sunday afternoon.
First off, I thawed a tri-tip roast I had obtained for cheep at Trader Joe’s some months ago. The tri-tip is a cut of beef from the bottom sirloin. In the US, it’s most popular in California, but it is known in other countries by other names (triangle steak, punta de Solomo, colita de cuadril, etc.)
Later that day, after starting the charcoal, I created more Magic Dust. This comes from a recipe out of Peace, Love, and Barbecue. Unfortunately, I had run out of cayenne without knowing it, so I used crushed red pepper instead.
Next, I coated six potatoes with olive oil and magic dust, and mounted them on my fancy new rib and potato rack. Once the fire was ready, I put these into the grill first as they would take longer than the meat.
As for the fire, I added a log of oak in. This had been sitting in my basement all winter, so I had to hose off all the dust. This became a slight problem later on.
Once the potatoes were cooking, I sprinkled more Magic Dust all over the meat. Transferring the meat to the grill was a little tricky since the roast is actually pretty thin compared to big chunk of a roast. I managed to not drop anything, thankfully.
I had also purchased a bunch of asparagus. These I trimmed and placed in a foil hobo pack with some onion slices, salt, pepper, and butter, which then went on the top rack of the grill.
After about 45 minutes of cooking, the meat was still 25 degrees away from completion, but the fire had nearly gone out. I opened up the vents in hopes that the log would catch, but it only smoldered while the coals burned to ash. The roast actually started losing degrees while I started more charcoal. In an effort to regain lost time, I placed the meat right over the freshly-relit fire, resulting in one side getting charred a bit. Nobody seemed to mind this on the finished product, though.
Last but not least was a warmed-up can of Bush’s Grillin’ Beans. I have no great ability to bake beans yet, and my father-in-law’s recipe is a secret! Also, I don’t think we have any beans and I forgot to buy more. Oops.
* Over the winter I put them in the oven on a self-cleaning cycle to remove all the crud that built up over the past two years.