Electric Skillet Tri-Tip with Mushrooms & Vegetables

Electric skillet tri-tip dinner with mushrooms, vegetables and a loaded baked potato

Some dinners begin with a recipe. This one began with an old electric skillet, a shelf full of vintage cookbooks, and one question:

What if we made dinner tonight as though it were 1989?

Not a museum-piece recreation of one particular recipe. Not a carefully staged historical exercise. Just supper, made with one foot in my kitchen and the other somewhere near the end of the 1980s.

Out came the electric skillet. There was tri-tip to cook, mushrooms and onion waiting in the refrigerator, frozen stir-fry vegetables, a little leftover beef broth, and a baked potato destined for sour cream and plenty of cheddar.

It was exactly the sort of dinner that reminded me why electric skillets once earned such a permanent place on American kitchen counters: brown the meat, cook the vegetables, bring everything back together, and get supper onto the table without dirtying half the kitchen.

And somewhere along the way, dinner became more than dinner. The old cookbooks came out. The camera came on. A bottle of Perrier found its way to the table. By the time the plates were filled, the whole thing had acquired a soundtrack.

Tonight, we weren’t merely making supper.
We were eating like it was 1989.

The Recipe

What You’ll Need

About 1 1/4 pounds tri-tip, cut into 3 thick pieces
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Beef tallow, for searing
Butter, for the skillet
Olive oil, as needed
1/2 medium onion, sliced
4 ounces mushrooms, sliced
About 10 ounces frozen stir-fry vegetables
About 1/2 cup beef broth

For serving:

Baked potatoes
Sour cream
Shredded cheddar cheese

At the Electric Skillet

In the Kitchen

Step One

Pat the tri-tip dry and season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Preheat the electric skillet to 350°F. Add enough beef tallow, butter and a little olive oil to lightly coat the cooking surface.

Step Two

Add the tri-tip to the hot skillet and sear until well browned on both sides.

Once the meat has developed a good crust, lower the skillet temperature to 225°F, cover, and allow it to cook gently for about 15 minutes.

Step Three

Check the beef with an instant-read thermometer. When the pieces reach about 140°F, transfer them to a plate and allow them to rest while you prepare the vegetables.

Bianca’s Kitchen Note: Tri-tip pieces can vary considerably in thickness, so let the thermometer — rather than the clock — tell you when the meat is ready.

Step Four

Add the sliced onion and mushrooms to the drippings left in the electric skillet. Cook until the onion begins to soften and the mushrooms have taken on some color.

Step Five

Add the frozen stir-fry vegetables and pour in about 1/2 cup of beef broth. Stir everything together, scraping up the browned bits from the skillet.

Cook for approximately 5 to 10 minutes, until the vegetables are hot and tender but still have some life left in them.

Step Six

Return the tri-tip to the skillet with the vegetables. Cover and keep the skillet at 225°F for roughly another 10 minutes, or just until everything is heated through and the beef has reached your preferred final doneness.

Step Seven

Slice the tri-tip across the grain and serve with the mushrooms, onion and vegetables. Add a hot baked potato with sour cream and shredded cheddar alongside.

Perrier is entirely optional.

From the Electric Skillet

Making Dinner

Seasoned tri-tip ready to cook in an electric skillet

Tri-tip browning in a vintage electric skillet

Mushrooms and onions cooking in the electric skillet

Vegetables and tri-tip finishing together in the electric skillet

From Bianca’s kitchen: a good sear, mushrooms and onions in the drippings, vegetables in the skillet, and one very satisfying trip back to 1989.

A Few Things Worth Knowing

Kitchen Notes

About the tri-tip: The pieces I cooked were thick rather than one whole roast. If yours are thinner, thicker, or left whole, the cooking time will change. An instant-read thermometer is much more reliable than following the minutes exactly.

About the vegetables: Frozen stir-fry vegetables were perfect for the spirit of this supper and made the meal wonderfully practical. Use a blend you enjoy; there is no need to reproduce mine exactly.

About the broth: I used leftover beef broth because it was already in the refrigerator. It loosened all those browned skillet bits and gave the vegetables an easy pan sauce at the same time.

About the baked potato: Mine was unapologetically loaded with sour cream and cheddar. Some things do not need modernization.

And about 1989: This supper is not presented as a reproduction of one historical recipe from that year. It is my own dinner, inspired by the cookbooks, appliances, ingredients and kitchen memories of the era.

At the Table