Prime Rib

To those of you who bemoan my ability to syndicate my thoughts and culinary forays, you shouldn't be reading this, so you only have yourself to blame.

To those of you who checked back frequently for my latest kitchen adventure, you shouldn't have.  There must be something else more productive you can do with your time.  

Now if you're my wife, and are referring to this because I am absent and would like to make a delicious piece of meat that the chefs at Ruth's Chris would drool over, you've come to the right place.

Condensed Recipe

• Preheat oven to 250° F
• Place standing rib roast on wire rack on a pan
• Brush canola oil to cover the meat
• Salt and pepper to cover the meat.
• Place meat in the oven. Check temp every hour.  Heat until internal temp is 120° F.
• Remove meat from oven and cover with foil.  Reset oven temp to 500° F.  
• Wait 15 minutes and put the meat back in the oven for 10 minutes to make a crispy crust.
• Remove meat and cover with foil.  Wait 20 minutes, carve and serve.

My senseless ramblings

I started using Alton Brown's recipe for Dry-Aged Standing Rib Roast.  After reviewing it and seeing things about terracotta pots, I decided to dial back the complexity of the recipe.  Also, the only real issue I have with the recipe is that it produces almost no drippings.  If you are hoping to eat it with the au-jus described in the recipe, good luck. Maybe the size of my roast didn't lend itself to creating enough fond?  I just used some beef boullion and red wine.  That being said, the issue of not having drippings may be moot.  (if you are concerned that I may have misspelled the word "mute", please see moot vs. mute)  The meat didn't need any juice added back to it, as it all stayed in the roast.

So here goes my version.

Get yourself a standing rib roast -- the best cut of beef out there.  I'm right, don't argue.  (I'll probably contradict myself some day in the future, but that's part of the fun)  If you're going for prime rib as the main focus of your meal, I would plan on about 16 oz per person.  My roast was 4 pounds and that fed myself, my wife, my son and my friend (who I think ended up with a 24 oz cut - he said he was hungry).  

I "dry-aged" mine for a day, because I wasn't really thinking ahead.  I'm not sure exactly what this does.  I just googled "dry aging beef" and it came up with this.  Something about enzymes and moisture -- I'm sure that's all well and good, but I tried this recipe without the 24 hour age and with - both turned out awesome.  Maybe I will actually try the 72 hour aging process at some later date and redact this recipe.   

I turned the oven on to 250° F and while it warmed up, I prepared the meat.  For cooking and prepping I stuck a cooling rack in a cookie sheet.  I have used this in other recipes, and it seems to keep things nice and crisp instead of soggy.  I used a brush and some vegetable oil (Alton recommends canola as it has a higher smoke point) and coated all sides of the meat -- you'll need this as all the moisture on the surface will be gone and the salt and fresh cracked pepper will have nothing to stick to.  As you can see from the photo, the amount of salt and pepper depends upon the size of the roast.  You should use enough to produce a thick layer of crunchy, salty, peppery deliciousness.  Using the rack while you season it is also beneficial, as when you rotate the meat, you don't leave any on the plate/platter/cutting board you would have otherwise used.

Into the 250°F oven goes the beast.  At this low temperature, I believe Mr. Brown's use of a terracotta pot in order to evenly distribute the heat to be excessive.  However, later on I think it's merits may be shown.  I do not own a probe-thermometer, which can be left in the roast for the duration of cooking.  However, I have a regular meat thermometer and I checked the temperature of the meat every hour.  At this temperature, the 4lb beast seemed to rise about 50° per hour.  Once the internal temperature reached 120°F, I removed it from the oven and covered with foil. 

Now off the oven goes to 500°F.  It'll probably take about 10-15 minutes for the oven to sufficiently heat itself up.  I believe the pot apparatus would be useful at this point.  Upon reviewing the episode, when I pulled the beast from the oven, it did a fair amount of smoking, while Alton's did not.  Maybe that's Hollywood magic, maybe it was vegetable oil instead of canola, or maybe it was the pot keeping the heat evenly distributed.  I'm not really sure, but the smokiness subsided quickly and there seemed to be no off-tastes.  

10 minutes in the oven and a nice, crispy crust had developed.  I removed it, tented it with foil and then let it rest for 20 minutes, while I got the rest of the sides put together.

As far as the au-jus goes, I made 2 cups of beef stock and combined that with a cup of red wine and the bit of drippings I got from the pan.  Nothing to brag about, but it had a little bit of flavor and went well on top of the mashed potatoes.  It looked like Mr. Brown did a 10 pounds roast, perhaps enough fond was produced by that much meat to make a decent amount.

To the table it went with a bit of horseradish sauce, a glass of wine, glazed carrots and mashed potatoes.

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