Tri-Tip Medallion with a Red Wine Reduction
current situation: tri tip medallion with red wine reduction, baked potato and sauteed onions
A reduction is three ingredients and twenty minutes and it makes a plate look like somebody charged you forty dollars for it.
The rule nobody keeps: reduce the wine on its own first, before the stock goes anywhere near it. Wine simmered with stock from the start stays sharp and thin. Wine taken down to a syrup by itself loses its edge and turns into something dark and sweet, and then the stock goes in. That is the whole technique.
And it finishes with cold butter off the heat. That is what makes it coat the plate and hold its shine instead of going dull and watery, which is the single most visible difference between a sauce and a puddle.
- Feeds
- 2
- Hands-on
- 45 minutes
- Reduction
- 25 minutes
- Centre
- Rose, 128°F
What you need
The beef
- 2 thick tri-tip medallions, cut 2 inches, about 10 oz each
- Coarse kosher salt and cracked black pepper
- 1 tbsp beef tallow
The reduction
- 2 cups dry red wine — something you would drink
- 2 shallots, sliced thin
- 2 cloves garlic, smashed
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 1/2 cups beef stock
- 1 tsp red wine vinegar
- 3 tbsp cold butter, cut up
The rest of the plate
- 2 large russet potatoes
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3 onions, sliced, for the sauté
- 1 bay leaf
- Salt and pepper
How it goes
1 — Potatoes into a 425°F oven, naked
Oiled, salted, an hour on the bare rack. They will be smashed open, so the skin matters — no foil.
2 — Sweat the shallots, then reduce the wine ALONE
Shallots, garlic and bay softened in a little butter, then the wine in and brought to a simmer. Take it down until there is about a third of a cup left and it looks syrupy. Twenty minutes and no stock yet.
3 — Then the stock, reduced by half again
Stock in, simmered until it coats the back of a spoon. Strained through a sieve, pressing the shallots. A splash of vinegar to wake it up. Set aside off the heat.
4 — Onions down slow with a bay leaf
Separate pan, butter, onions, bay, low heat, twenty-five minutes until dark and collapsed. Leave the bay leaf in — it is visible on the plate and it belongs there.
5 — Sear the medallions to a hard crust
Dry, salted, peppered, into smoking tallow. Three minutes a side, then all the way round the edges with tongs. You want the near-black crust in the picture, which means not moving them.
6 — Pull at 128°F and rest ten minutes
Rose through the middle. A two-inch medallion carries a lot of residual heat and will climb five degrees on the board.
7 — Cold butter into the warm reduction, off the heat
Pan off the flame, butter whisked in a piece at a time until it is glossy and thick enough to pool rather than run. Never boil it after the butter goes in or it splits.
pro tip — If it does split, a tablespoon of cold stock whisked in hard usually brings it back. Once. Not twice.
8 — Smash the potato, pool the sauce, plate it
Potato pressed open and buttered. Sauce poured onto the plate first and the medallion set into it, cut face up. Onions in a heap below.
Three ingredients in that sauce. Nobody will believe you. LFG.