Smoking food can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. Go to your meat counter, your grocer and find the cut they need to sell. Or the one that’s on sale. I found a small sub-$4 cut and gave it the royal treatment!
The Prep Table
Sticking with the Meat Church theme – I put their “Holy Cow” seasoning to the test. When I bought the mega-pack of seasonings, I tried them all bare – and ended up with some serious heartburn. My excitement, my mistake. I usually season a steak simple – S&P – Salt & Pepper. If it’s a nice spinalis cut, or tomahawk, I’ll throw my beef seasoning with onion powder/garlic powder, etc. on there, but I have the Holy Cow this time.
This Holy Cow blend is peppery! I figured it ideal for this cut, and laid it on thick. Let the steak get to room temperature for an even cook, and set the smoker to 225 to get that flavor.
Since I started doing the reverse sear, I haven’t gone back. I’ve done it on a cast iron pan, threw it on the Blackstone griddle – I just haven’t done it on the GrillGrates before!
The idea – get the smoke in there while cooking it slowly and cap it off with a high temp sear. Get your thermometer ready, we’re going for it!
The Process
There isn’t much to add for the process. We’re going low until it’s about 120-130 degrees IT (Internal Temp). This took about an hour, and you can already see that great color added to it.
An hour later, I pulled the steak off and tented it with foil. It’s time to use the power of the pellet smoker and crank it to 500 degrees. I put the GrillGrates on one side of the smoker and when it got to about 500, them plates were sizzling hot.
I seared each side for about 3-4 minutes and pulled it off to let it rest for about 5-10 minutes – re-distribute them juices. I went for a medium-steak on this one – so I tried to pull it around 140 degrees. The small cut got that temp up there fast, so didn’t take long at all.
The Result
She turned out a little more done than I like, but the taste was great! Meat Church’s Holy Cow BBQ Seasoning coupled with that smoky flavor really made this $4 steak pop!
I got to most of it before the redskin potatoes were done, but still had some pieces left for the formal dinner.
Cheap meal, and about an hour and a half of time. Not a lot to this one. A nice garlicky compound butter or horseradish/dill sauce would’ve been a nice addition. This was a quick cook and a demonstration that you don’t need a whole lot of prep for a good product.
Thanks for the view, kudos to Meat Church for a great seasoning (4 for 4! Haven’t disappointed yet!). Leave a note, let me know what you think.
The Recipe
The $4 Sirloin
Ingredients
- 1 Top Sirloin Steak
- Meat Church "Holy Cow" seasoning
Instructions
- Preheat pellet smoker to 225. Put your GrillGrates on the rack near the stack. I did these "griddle" side up, but to each their own.
- Season the steak liberally with your favorite seasoning (I used Meat Church's Holy Cow – coarse peppery blend.
- Place on the rack (not the GrillGrates) until internal temp is 120-130 – approx. 1 hour.
- Remove steak from grill and place on cutting board, tent with aluminum foil. Crank the pellet grill to 500 or so – get it hot!
- When it's going full grill mode, place the steak on the GrillGrates and bask in that sizzle.
- I went 3-4 minutes each side until your IT hits your mark. See Notes for the "doneness" scale
- Remove when you've hit that temp, rest for 5-10 minutes – let those juices come back.
- Slice and Eat!