Tri-Tip With Fred's Super Secret Marinade

wepinsf

Three day soak was fine but, you're right, five days would be better. Great and fairly simple cook. This is a keeper. 

Legume

@dmourati try zanotto’s, there’s one in Sunnyvale.  They have a nice meat counter.

1voyager

@dmourati That looks like an awesome cook!

Ozzie_Isaac

The Cen-Tex Smoker said:

Marinating in that much vinegar for 5 days (or 5 hours for that matter) will “precook” the meat. That is what that gray ring around your perfectly cooked steak is. I ran into this with an APL steak recipe earlier this year. 

Do you have a solution for this, or is it just the nature of the beast as does not impact anything other than looks?

dmourati

I read @The Cen-Tex Smoker's admonition about precooking the meat with some trepidation as I was about to do the cook myself with a tri-tip pre-marinated by the butcher. I didn't get the dreaded gray ring around the meat as shown above. I can offer a few possible hypotheses:

1. The "real" Fred's Steak marinate is sufficiently different from the approximation posted that it doesn't have the same precooking effect.

2. The marinades are effectively the same but the difference in gray ring comes down to cooking time/temperature

3. The "real" marinade is not done for the five day duration as surmised.

All that aside, I came back to this thread to say I used up the rest of the tri-tip in enchiladas tonight and it was amazing. I diced the tri-tip and fried it in hot canola oil and butter for about 5 minutes before my wife assembled the enchiladas. She used a canned mexican style enchilada sauce, pinto beans, and sauce and covered the enchiladas with some shredded cheese. Amazing.

1voyager

I've had those same three thoughts about Fred's tri-tip recipe from time-to-time. It's a delicious marinade, IMHO, but it's not quite a Fred's. Next time I'm going to add Vegemite and see if that changes anything. 

wepinsf

Out of curiosity, what would Vegemite do?

1voyager

I have no idea what the addition of Vegemite would do to the tri-tip but it's part of the deconstructed recipe. Taste? Tenderness? Texture? I'm just guessing. I ate a piece of toast with Vegemite during a visit to Australia. It's thick, sort of like a blend of peanut butter and sand. It tasted terrible. 

Anyway, I ordered a jar from Amazon. I'm going to make the marinade Monday and reverse sear a tri-tip on Friday. I'll give an update in a new thread Saturday morning.

Thanks for asking.

YukonRon

How would that be with a chuckie?

The Cen-Tex Smoker

wepinsf said:

Out of curiosity, what would Vegemite do?

Umami. Vegemite is fermented and funky and would add that undertone to the marinade. Some people use things like fish sauce or liquid aminos (i use both) in marinades to get that umami flavor. 

1voyager

1voyager said:

I have no idea what the addition of Vegemite would do to the tri-tip but it's part of the deconstructed recipe. Taste? Tenderness? Texture? I'm just guessing. I ate a piece of toast with Vegemite during a visit to Australia. It's thick, sort of like a blend of peanut butter and sand. It tasted terrible. 

Anyway, I ordered a jar from Amazon. I'm going to make the marinade Monday and reverse sear a tri-tip on Friday. I'll give an update in a new thread Saturday morning.

Thanks for asking.

Just curious to whoever voted my response as off-topic. How can it be off-topic when the discussion is about adding Vegemite to the Fred's marinade recipe? Also, I'm the OP and the topic is about Fred's deconstructed marinade for tri-tip.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

1voyager said:

1voyager said:

I have no idea what the addition of Vegemite would do to the tri-tip but it's part of the deconstructed recipe. Taste? Tenderness? Texture? I'm just guessing. I ate a piece of toast with Vegemite during a visit to Australia. It's thick, sort of like a blend of peanut butter and sand. It tasted terrible. 

Anyway, I ordered a jar from Amazon. I'm going to make the marinade Monday and reverse sear a tri-tip on Friday. I'll give an update in a new thread Saturday morning.

Thanks for asking.

Just curious to whoever voted my response as off-topic. How can it be off-topic when the discussion is about adding Vegemite to the Fred's marinade recipe? Also, I'm the OP and the topic is about Fred's deconstructed marinade for tri-tip.

It’s likely a fat-finger on a phone. Don’t sweat it. 

The Cen-Tex Smoker

Ha! It me. Totally Inadvertent. Removed . 

1voyager

Now I'm laughing, @The Cen-Tex Smoker. One of the main reasons why I'm adding Vegemite is because of your comment/insight about the "vinegar ring". I'm wondering if the Vegemite might counter that problem. Probably not but what the heck.

No worries.

The Cen-Tex Smoker

1voyager said:

Now I'm laughing, @The Cen-Tex Smoker. One of the main reasons why I'm adding Vegemite is because of your comment/insight about the "vinegar ring". I'm wondering if the Vegemite might counter that problem. Probably not but what the heck.

No worries.

Vinegar is acid. Acid adds brightness (flavor Enhancer). Vegemite will not replace what acid can give but acid would “brighten up” the umami from vegemite. I would add the vinegar the last hour before you cook it.  That will be plenty and it won’t cook/denature all the proteins on the outside of your tri tip.

Beware any marinade that contain acids that call for a long marination time. Any time over an hour or 2 will really change the texture of whatever you are marinating.

Common acids in marinades include (but not limited to): lime/lemon/orange, tomato etc (citric acid), yogurts, buttermilk (lactic acid) and vinegars

watch out for fresh pineapple as well. It contains citric acid and bromelain which is an enzyme that breaks down protein. Canned pineapple or canned pineapple juice does not contain this enzyme (it’s cooked out in the canning process). Fresh pineapple will eat a piece of meat until it’s total mush. 

Good luck and and let us know how it turns out. 

johnnygreengo12

Used this recipe as instructed on a picanha, instead of tri-tip. Sous vide for 5 hours at 125 deg F, seared on full blast on the egg for a couple minutes a side. I was more than pleased!

booksw

The butcher at Whole Foods in Charleston SC told me he doesn’t stock tritip  anymore because he couldn’t sell them. I special ordered one from him to serve to some meat eating friends on July 12 (i will pick it up on July 7!). I’m excited to try this western specialty!!

The Cen-Tex Smoker

booksw said:

The butcher at Whole Foods in Charleston SC told me he doesn’t stock tritip  anymore because he couldn’t sell them. I special ordered one from him to serve to some meat eating friends on July 12 (i will pick it up on July 7!). I’m excited to try this western specialty!!

They are beefy and delicious. If you’ve never made one before check out a tutorial on how to slice it. The grain moves around a lot and it’s best to slice across. There should be some YouTube stuff out there I’m sure.