California Barbecue Tri-Tip and Beans
Unlike other barbecue recipes, California Barbecued Tri-Tip recipes call for cooking the meat over high heat and seasoning it only with salt, pepper, garlic, and the sweet smoke of the grill. This consistently produces a charred exterior and very rare center—but we wanted the outside cooked less and the inside cooked more. Searing our California Barbecued Tri-Tip above smoldering wood chips gave us noticeable but mild smoke flavor and moist meat.
Serves 4 to 6
Bottom round is an acceptable substitute for tri-tip. If you can find them, pinquito beans (a variety grown in the Santa Maria Valley) are traditional in this dish. Bottled taco sauce is available in the Mexican aisle of most grocery stores. Don't add the tomato puree, taco sauce, brown sugar, and salt before the beans have simmered for an hour; they will hinder the proper softening of the beans.
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