Appetizers With Steak Tips

These tenderloin filets resemble the lean texture of tenderloin tips. Sirloin tips have marbling.

Steak tips are the lean, tender ends cut from a tenderloin roast or the marbled pieces from a sirloin steak. The tips might also be called flap meat referring to their positioning as leftover cuts of meat after the larger steaks are butchered. These pieces are too small for steaks, but just the right size for making bite-sized, beefy appetizers. The steak tips cook faster than larger cuts of beef, in as little as six minutes for tenderloin tips and up to 20 minutes for sirloin tips. Replace fatty, flavorless ground hamburger in your appetizers for steak tips for a meatier, richer start to your meal.

Bacon-Wrapped

Filet mignon, scallops and shrimp all benefit from cooking with a strip of bacon wrapped around them. These meats are all lean and prone to drying during cooking, but wrapping bacon around the meat adds moisture and flavor. This same theory applies to keeping steak tips tender during cooking. Wrap a piece of pre-cooked bacon around each individual tenderloin steak tip and secure it with a toothpick. Bake the steak tips for three minutes per side in a 450 degrees Fahrenheit oven. Increase the cooking time if you use uncooked bacon and cook until both the meat and bacon have cooked thoroughly to the center. Cook the steak tips for up to 20 minutes if you are preparing sirloin tips, indicated by the marbling. Leave the toothpicks in the steak tips for serving.

Kebabs

Steak tips are the perfect cuts for skewering. Replace chunks of meat in any kebab recipe with steak tips and prepare as directed. Leave the skewers in the meat if they are wooden for serving, but remove metal skewers, to prevent burns, and insert a toothpick into each steak tip piece for serving. For even more flavor, add fruits or vegetables to the skewers with the steak tips. Peppers, onions and pineapples are flavorful options no matter what spices you season the meat with.

Potato Boats

Instead of stuffed potato skins or serving a braised steak tips entree atop mashed potatoes, combine these ideas into an appetizer. Bake potatoes, halve them and remove the cooked flesh, leaving behind a 1/4-inch shell of the skin. Fill the potato skins with braised steak tips. Fine Cooking has an online recipe for steak tips braised in beer with a mushroom sauce. This recipe would pair well with other appetizers at a game-watching party, especially if beer is served. The robust flavors of the dark beer and steak tips in the recipe make a single potato skin stuffed with the steak tips a hearty appetizer alternative to twice-baked potatoes or potato skins topped with cheese and chives.

Spring Rolls

Fill light Asian spring rolls with cooked strips of beef tips instead of, or in addition to, other meats and vegetables in the rolls. Spring rolls are wrapped in rice paper and served chilled as opposed to deep-fried egg rolls in thicker egg roll wrappers. These chilled appetizers are a good option when the weather turns hot outside and you want to prepare the appetizer ahead of time. All of the filling ingredients are pre-cooked before chilling and rolling into rice paper rolls. Serve a flavorful dipping sauce with the rolls for guests to pour into lettuce cups or miniature bowls to dip their spring rolls on their plates.

References

• Omaha Steaks: Bacon-Wrapped Tenderloin Tips Recipe
• Fine Cooking: Beer-Braised Sirloin Steak Tips with Mushroom Sauce Recipe; Molly Stevens; 1 October 2003
• Epicurious: Sirloin Kebabs With Southeast Asian Style Spice Paste Recipe; Gourmet; June 2007
• Food Network: Vietnamese Salad Rolls With Chicken, Shrimp and Beef Recipe; Stan Frankenthaler