That delicious tri-tip sandwich with which we in Tulare County are so familiar just might be Central California’s best-kept secret.
Theo Toby, owner of Porter Street Bar-B-Que in Porterville, says he cooks about 150 pounds of tri-tip each day. “Back in the Midwest and South it’s all beef brisket,” said
Toby, who is originally from Oklahoma. “Most people there have never h
eard of tri-tip.”
The story goes that the tri-tip roast, which gets its name because of its triangular shape, originated in Santa Maria, where it became a local specialty, said Tom Wyatt, barbecue and marketing coordinator at Harris Ranch Beef Co., in Selma.
Historically, tri-tip was rarely seen in butcher shops when meat was delivered as a carcass and butchered on site. “Most people don’t know that there are only two pieces of tri-tip in an entire steer,” Toby said. Each tri-tip is only about two pounds, “and if you can get a three-pound tri-tip, you’re doing really well.” By comparison, there are about 10 pounds of tenderloin per steer and about 30 to 40 pounds of brisket.
Shelly Byrd, manager of Glick’s Old Fashion Meat Market & Deli, says it’s simply a matter of supply and demand. “The price is low because there isn’t a demand for it in the East. It’s mostly shipped out here to California. If the word got out and it becomes popular elsewhere, the price will skyrocket.”
But the word is slowly getting around. Wyatt says whenever his father-in-law come to visit, he takes tri-tip back to Oklahoma with him. “He says everyone back there just loves it.”
Tom Valencia, part owner and manager of Dash-In Café and BBQ on the corner of Shirk and Pershing avenues, says he cooks about 250 pounds of tri-tip every week in his giant custom-built 8-foot-tall smoker. “I like tri-tip because it’s so flavorful. I buy untrimmed roasts and smoke them for about four to five hours.” Then he shaves them down for delicious breakfast burritos, lunch burritos and sandwiches.
At the Porter Street Bar-B-Que, Toby says he likes tri-tip because it can be cooked in a lot less time than brisket. “The main difference in preparing the two is that brisket needs to be cooked over a low heat for about six hours or more, whereas tri-tip can be cooked over a more intense heat in about an hour. If brisket is prepared that way it would be so tough you couldn’t even eat it,” Toby says.
It comes on a slightly toasted bun, then “I start with a very thick bed of shredded barbecued tri-tip,” Toby says. Then he stacks two, one-third pound hamburger patties topped with two slices of cheddar cheese and finishes it off with another huge layer of shredded tri-tip, smothered in a savory barbecue sauce.
For those who want to cook the cut at home, Toby says it’s important not to overcook a tri-tip roast. That’s because it is a relatively low-fat cut of meat and can become dry if overcooked. He recommends only cooking until it is medium rare at most because the meat will continue to cook for a while even after it is removed from the heat.
