Coffee Chipolte Steak

A friend brought over a local cut of sirloin strip beef. To be exact, 1.48 lb of Beef Sirloin Strip Steaks from Willingham Farm (Remington, VA).

My initial thought was to do my classic garlic thyme butter treatment. But I wanted to do something new and up the stakes (steaks!) so the wonderful cut meets a rub made of coffee, chipolte, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper. This will sit in the fridge for 2 hours, then room temperature before cooking. This is critical to get the flavors into the meat.

To make this different than my other steaks I decided to do 2 things, one was a ‘reverse sear’ and the other was to cook in in a cast irons skillet on the grill. This would allow me to cook a bunch of asparagus as well as using the same skillet to saute some wild mushrooms.

So on a roughly 250° temp, I put in the seasoned meat to cook for about 10 minutes, flipping it. This isn’t a ribeye, I wanted to tenderize it a bit. Then I turned up the heat and seared each side to a crispy brown and pulled it off to rest for 10 minutes.

During this time the salad was made while I tossed in a pile of mushrooms with onions and shallots into the pan used to cook the strips steaks were in, and on the other side I grilled the asparagus, coated with olive oil and a Mr. Dash seasoning. When the mushrooms and asparagus were done, the meat was rested, the salad was complete and the meal was fantastic.

I thin sliced the steak for serving at the last moment, it had the classic warm center and a crispy outside crust.

Bottom line: A coffee/chipolte rub is a wonderful departure from my traditional steak and I highly recommend it! It took almost no time to prepare and the result was a subtle, but wonderful bite.