Steak-Tip trial & Error

Sunday near 10 PM, at the Whole Foods, I bought a pound of steak-tips. It was almost closing time. The young black man who was a butcher, gave me the meat which had already been covered by some white plastic. For a change I got the unflavored stuff. At home I discovered it was not chopped up, I tore it up with my hands. I rubbed Black Peppercorn Sauce into half of it, and organic Tandoor Masala into the other half of it (Hour 0). Then at hour 28 (28 hrs after hour 0), I heated up my cast-iron griddle and cooked the Black-Peppercorn half-pound, for 8 minutes only because the pieces were small.

I was disappointed by the black-peppercorn half-pound, though at other times I've had great results with black-peppercorn sauce meat and the griddle. They tasted a little like Whole-Foods hamburger I buy and take home tastes when I try to cook it on the griddle or in a skillet. The taste was like stale animal-fat (when the Whole-Foods Hot-Bar presents cheeseburgers made with their ground-beef this stale-animal-fat-like taste is not present-- they use an indoor grill over a flame source, which allows the fat in the hamburger to drip down and away).

Then at hour-56, I took out two pieces of steak tips that I had marinated simply by rubbing Tandoor Powder into them. I heated up the griddle all the way up to 650 degrees in the middle and 550 degrees in the corners (IR thermometer readings). I noted that after the griddle got to around 475 degrees as I left the flame on it went all the way up to 650 degrees. Then I cooked two pieces of the Tandoor-powder marinated steak tips. I left the pieces on one side for 2 minutes, then on the other side for 2 minutes, then rolled them around for 2 minutes, and then put the lid of a pot over them for 2 minutes. Then I put some clarified butter and lemon juice and salt on them, waited 5 minutes before eating them.

The result  with the Tandoor-powder steak-tips was superior to the peppercorn-sauce marinated tips. The stale animal-fat taste was not present. The taste of Cumin was excessive, and the Tandoor-spices tasted undercooked; however the result was something that I can imagine the neighborhood Indian restaurant presenting, accompanied by chutney bread garnishments etc, without incurring disgrace upon itself.

This experience so far produces certain points of confusion.

1. Are the steak-tips that you buy pre-marinated, better preserved compared to the un-marinated ones?

2. Are the steak-tips less fresh when you buy them just before closing?

3. Was the level of heat of the cast-iron griddle, (ranging from 450 - 650 degrees when it seems ready for cooking) too low when I cooked the Peppercorn-sauce marinated tips?

4. How can us earthlings who lack indoor grills, reproduce that Whole Foods hot bar taste, which is pleasingly devoid of that stale animal-fat taste? Will an electric grill work?

5. Would somehow cooking the Tandoor-powder before using it as a marinade improve things?

6. Were the Tandoor-Tips better because they had no pink in the middle like the Peppercorn-tips?

7. Of all the differences between the way I cooked the Peppercorn-tips and the way I cooked the Tandoor-powder tips, which difference accounted for the superiority of the Tandoor-tips, despite them having sat in the frig for 56 hours before being cooked?

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Thursday 5/21/15, I continued the experiment at 845 AM (hour 82),
82 hours after the marinated steak-tips had been put in the frig. This time, I had the griddle at 400 degrees when I added the tips and I kept the flame constant, cooked them for 13 minutes. Previous time at hour 56, I started with the griddle at 650, kept the flame constant, and cooked for 8 minutes. This because 400x13 = 600x8. As with the previous time, the first quarter of the cooking-time the tips were left to rest on one side, the second quarter they were turned over and rested on the other side, the third quarter they were constantly moved around, and the fourth quarter, they were left stationary under a pot lid to get smoked up.

The result this time at hour-82, was superior to the result at hour-56. The spices did not taste as undercooked and the Cumin was not so dominant as at hour-56. After taking a few bites I heated the griddle up to 550-degrees and put the tips in without moving them for 1.5 minutes, after they had been covered in clarified butter lime juice and sea salt which I put on the Tandoor tips after I cook them as a garnishment that much improves things. This additional 1.5 minutes, did not change the taste of the tips.