I have had my eye on this Braised Tri-tip with Red Wine Glaze recipe for a long time. The only problem is tri-tip isn’t a cut of beef I normally find at my regular grocery store. I knew I would have to make a special trip to Wild Fork to get it, so I kept putting this recipe off. Then one day I was coming home after a Home Depot run and randomly decided to stop at Fresh Market. I found a tri-tip there and decided to buy the rest of the ingredients while I was at it. It was meant to be!
A beautiful beef cut that is braised in red wine and beef broth, then finished and served with a red wine glaze. Tri Tip is an economical and lean cut of beef yet really flavorful (like a chuck roast).
The Ingredients
The tri-tip was 2.68 pounds at $13.99 per pound, for a total price of $37.49. It wasn’t cheap, and this is definitely a special occasion kind of recipe for me.
I was out of most of the ingredients in the recipe, so I did a lot of shopping. I had to buy the vegetables, fresh herbs, tomato paste, butter, broth base, and wine. The rest—flour, cooking oil, kosher salt, and pepper—was waiting at home in my pantry.
The Process
Hubby knows me well, and he bought me the perfect pan for this roast a birthday or two back. Or maybe Christmas, but I digress. What I meant to say is an enameled cast-iron braising pan was made for this recipe!
Prepping the Tri-tip
The roast was very easy to prepare, and the cast-iron pan gave it a nice sear. Preheating the pan was key to that. Cast iron needs about 4 minutes to preheat on the stove, and it needs oil in it (non-enameled is the opposite and preheats dry).
I used two sets of kitchen tongs to get the meat into the pan, flip it, and move it out of the pan. One set might work if you have some wrist strength, but two were much easier for me.
Browning the meat was a bit messy with lots of oil spatter happening. My splatter screen kept the mess to a minimum and kept me from getting burned. It’s not foolproof, but it helps loads!
Prepping the Vegetables and Herbs
Browning didn’t need much supervision or any stirring, so I had time to prep the vegetables. At this point slicing and chopping carrots, celery, onions, and garlic is like second nature since they are used in so many recipes.
I had everything prepped and ready to go when the meat was done. After I removed the meat, I let the vegetables soften and brown. A wooden spatula was great for this step since it let me scrape the bottom of the pan as I stirred.
After the vegetables softened, I added the tomato paste and garlic. Then came the beef broth and red wine to deglaze the pan. My wooden spatula was perfect for this step too and for almost all the brown bits stuck to the bottom of the pan.
The last step before returning the roast to the pan was adding the herbs. Then I nestled the browned tri-tip in all that delicious-smelling goodness, put the lid on, and let it braise in the oven.
Making the Red Wine Glaze
Two and a half hours later I opened the lid to a beautiful roast. It was so tender that it almost fell apart when I transferred it to a carving board. Two wide spatulas were very helpful for this step! Using kitchen tongs like I did when I browned the meat would have broken it into pieces.
Now that the meat was safe, I strained the vegetables and herbs out of the liquid left in the braising pan and into a medium saucepan and added the apple cider vinegar.
I skimmed the liquid after it heated for five minutes then added the buerre manie I had mixed up while the meat cooked. The recipe was right, and it did a beautiful job of thickening the sauce!
All that was left was to slice the roast and plate it. I used a 15″ x 11″ oval platter and garnished it with the extra herbs. Then I added a drizzle of sauce for an extra touch, stepped back, and admired my work. I served it with the extra sauce on the side so we could add as much as we wanted.
Timing
This recipe listed 30 minutes to prep, 2 hours 30 minutes to cook, and a total time of 3 hours. Here’s how my time was spent:
- 21 minutes to prep (chopping, measuring, and browning meat)
- 2 hours 30 minutes to cook
- 27 minutes to make sauce
- 3 hours 18 minutes total
I cooked my roast for the time listed, so the slow-down must have been in the prep work. I’m not sure exactly what it was, but the extra time was worth it!
