[FTC Standard Disclosure]  I am proud to have Certified Angus Beef® Brand as our beef sponsor.

Have you ever used Szechuan peppercorns?  They are interesting in that contrary to what you might think, they aren't spicy black pepper or chiles.  Even more twisted, they contain a chemical named hydroxy-alpha-sanshool, which creates a slight numbing effect.  You can take advantage of this anesthetic effect by pairing it with spicy heat. 

That's what we did with this Asian inspired Szechuan Pepper Steak that Alexis and I cooked this weekend. The Szechuan peppercorns bring a flowery, almost citrus flavor, and Garlic Chile Butter adds luscious spiciness.  Of course, we cooked it on a grill, but you could absolutely do this on a stovetop.

Szechuan Pepper Steak

By www.nibblemethis.com

Ingredients

• 2 12-ounce Certified Angus Beef® Brand NY Strip Steaks
• 1 tablespoon peanut oil
• 2 green onions, sliced on a bias for garnish

For the Dry Rub

Reverse Seared Tri-Tip and Tri-Tip Cobb Salad

Three proteins?  That's my kind of salad!

Alexis and I made this Tri-Tip Cobb Salad for dinner this week.  It's not really an authentic Cobb salad...maybe Cobb-ish?  Whatever you want to call it, it's delicious.  It features:

• Reverse-seared beef tri-tip.
• Home-cured & smoked sorghum bacon (a recipe from our second book)
• Homemade yeast roll croutons
• Hard-boiled eggs
• Sliced tomato
• French fried onions
• Spring mix
• Homemade blue cheese dressing  

I had been craving beef tri-tip recently because Dan Phelps posted one that he cooked on his Kamado Joe at Learning To Smoke.  I mentioned to him that I hadn't seen tri-tip in the Knoxville area in quite a while and then BAM!  The very next week, I stumbled across a tri-tip!  The Baader-Meinhof effect for meat, perhaps? 

I have had a jar of Santa Maria tri-tip rub that I made at the Certified Angus Beef® Brand Culinary Center last year.

I lightly coated the tri-tip with avocado oil and then liberally applied the Santa Maria rub all over. A lot of people ask me about avocado oil.  It is a high-temperature cooking oil that's excellent for grilling.  It has a neutral flavor, much like olive oil doesn't taste like olives, and peanut oil doesn't taste like peanuts.