Recipe: Steak Tips

The last in the series of three owls for my March show is completed.

And I bought plane tickets yesterday!  And reserved a hotel room – for one!  I am officially going to Atlanta to install this show at Young Blood.  I will fly down on Thursday night, March 5, set it all up Friday, hang out Saturday and attend the opening Saturday night, and then fly back on Sunday.  Can you tell I’m excited?  This will be the longest time I’ve spent alone in five years.  Wow.

Okay, now on to what we had for dinner last night.  Southwestern marinated steak tips.  This is a recipe that originally ran in Cook’s Illustrated in May of 2003.  I have made it dozens and dozens of times and it is always so excellent and leftovers make great steak sandwiches for lunch the next day.  Steak tips are a rather inexpensive cut of meat.  The marinade comes together really fast (I made it at 7:45 am yesterday morning – I almost always prep dinner before 8:30 am so that I can use all of my free time to sew) and the ingredients are things I already have in the pantry.

I like to cook these on the grill pan in the winter months, although they are great grilled outdoors, too.

The trick with the grill pan is letting it heat up until it is really really hot before you put the meat on.  Then you get those nice grill marks and the coating of the meat caramelizes a bit. I served this with some garlic string beans and rice pilaf.  Very good weeknight dinner.

Southwestern Steak Tips
from Cook’s Illustrated Magazine, May 2003

For the marinade:

1/3 c soy sauce
1/3 c vegetable oil
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 Tbl. dark brown sugar
1 Tbl. tomato paste
1 Tbl. chili powder
2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. cayenne

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Add sriracha if you want it to be extra spicy.

Add 2 lbs. sirloin steak tips and marinate for a few hours or longer.

Heat grill pan until very hot (at least 2 min.) and put meat on pan in a single layer.  Cook over medium-high heat for 4-5 minutes.  Flip and cook again 4-5 min. or until meat is done to your liking.