Standing Rib Roast
Fundamentals
When I was editing programming magazines I sometimes had writers object to an assignment as redundant: "Lots of people have already explained a hash sort, why should I reinvent the wheel?" or, "Everyone knows how to do phonetic parsing, it doesn't make sense to do it again." To which my response was, "Trust me, know one has ever explained it the way you can and there are programmers — experienced programmers — who will learn some new take or suddenly gain an insight they were missing when they read your article."
I told them this knowing the article I'd written that received the most response from readers was on a topic computer science majors studied in their first year. And yet the e-mails said things like, "I'd forgotten that algorithm and it's perfect for a project I'm working on." and, "I never really understood why x and y were swapped, now I do." In short, I'd made something old, new again and given it my own spin. And that's why I'm addressing the King of Roasts — a prime rib.
Nomenclature
The other source of the name is from the Prime grade. This is the highest grade of beef, well-marbled with fat, and exceptionally tender. You can no longer find prime grade beef in most stores, in fact even choice is getting hard to find. Nevertheless, a Prime grade, well-aged primal rib roast is carnivore heaven.
Given the above, what you can buy in the standard Safeway, Kroger, and even Whole Foods is a standing rib roast — a smaller, lesser-grade roast. Someday you should save up and get a genuine, aged Prime-grade rib roast mail-order just to find out what the fuss is about, but a 3 pound roast from Lobels will set you back almost $150 or about $25/person. And I am serious, if you love beef one day you should try this meat.
However, even if you head down to the supermarket for a Select-grade roast, make the effort to select one with as much marbling in the meat as you can find. The fat strewn through the muscle adds flavor, mouth-feel, and juiciness. I recommend at least a three-rib roast, although I have had some success with a two-rib, large-end roast. But I suggest the larger roast because I recommend aging it. This will improve both it's flavor and tenderness but will reduce the servings by one. (Note: There is some risk here of food poisoning, how much I have no way of determining. The US Government recommends cooking eveything to 160F. It's your call.)
Aging the Roast
Dry-aging beef accomplishes two things. First, some of the water in the roast's juices evaporate. This concentrates flavors just as reducing wine enhances its flavors. Second, enzymic action in the presence of oxygen breaks down muscle fibers (making the roast more tender) and creates more complex flavors (especially glutamates - umami).
Pick up the roast seven days before you plan to cook it. Choose a roast with good marbling and, a thick layer of fat (at least 1/4-inch) over the flesh. If you're lucky enough to have access to a real butcher (even at a supermarket) or to a local supplier you can request this — just be sure to give them two to three weeks warning before you plan to pick it up.
Place the roast on a rack in tray (to promote air circulation and catch any drips) on the lowest shelf in your refrigerator. But avoid the coldest corner which can freeze the roast and prevent aging. Do NOT Cover or wrap the roast. It it's wrapped it will spoil.
Let it sit, just sit, for five to seven days.
Remove from fridge and using a very sharp knife trim off the dried fat and flesh from the meat sides — don't worry about the rib side. And don’t be overly concerned about a pristine appearance with no spot of slight grey flesh or slightly brown fat. By the time it's those minor imperfections will disappear.
Cooking
Restaurants that specialize in "prime rib" typically have special ovens to cook the roasts in. The ovens are large enough to contain several primal ribs at once and are geared toward very slow cooking.
The roast is first blasted with high heat to both begin browning the meat and to kill any surface bacteria. Then they are slowly cooked, sometimes over as much as eight hours, to assure the entire roast is cooked to a uniform rare. Then if someone orders medium rare, medium, or (God forbid) well-done the meat is sliced off the bone and quickly heated to 135, 145, or 160 degrees. You can do this at home.
Recipe
This is as basic a recipe as you can imagine, but if you've followed the steps above you already created a great deal of complex flavor. Don’t futz with the work you've already done. Take it easy.
I'll leave it to you to decide on sauce or no sauce and what to do with the goodness left in the bottom of the roasting pan. But I like tossing some par-boiled potatoes and carrots into the roasting pan and sticking the pan back in the oven at 400F while I make a port wine demi-glace to grace the meat.
Try this roast with...
Potatoes Savoyarde
Leeks with Anchovy Butter
Cranberry Mousse
When I was editing programming magazines I sometimes had writers object to an assignment as redundant: "Lots of people have already explained a hash sort, why should I reinvent the wheel?" or, "Everyone knows how to do phonetic parsing, it doesn't make sense to do it again." To which my response was, "Trust me, know one has ever explained it the way you can and there are programmers — experienced programmers — who will learn some new take or suddenly gain an insight they were missing when they read your article."
I told them this knowing the article I'd written that received the most response from readers was on a topic computer science majors studied in their first year. And yet the e-mails said things like, "I'd forgotten that algorithm and it's perfect for a project I'm working on." and, "I never really understood why x and y were swapped, now I do." In short, I'd made something old, new again and given it my own spin. And that's why I'm addressing the King of Roasts — a prime rib.
Nomenclature
Enzymic action in the presence of oxygen breaks down muscle fibers (making the roast more tender) and creates more complex flavors (especially glutamates — umami).
There are two sources to the name "prime rib" and in most cases they don't apply to what we cook at home. The primary source is that the beef rib is known as a "primal" cut because it's a fundamental devision of an animal. The ribs from the center section of ribs are the rib primal cut. This cut typically includes 6 - 7 ribs, weighs around 25 pounds, and will serve 12 - 15 people. This large primal rib cut is then often divided into a large end and small end. These are what we find at the store and they are not, by this definition, "prime ribs."The other source of the name is from the Prime grade. This is the highest grade of beef, well-marbled with fat, and exceptionally tender. You can no longer find prime grade beef in most stores, in fact even choice is getting hard to find. Nevertheless, a Prime grade, well-aged primal rib roast is carnivore heaven.
Given the above, what you can buy in the standard Safeway, Kroger, and even Whole Foods is a standing rib roast — a smaller, lesser-grade roast. Someday you should save up and get a genuine, aged Prime-grade rib roast mail-order just to find out what the fuss is about, but a 3 pound roast from Lobels will set you back almost $150 or about $25/person. And I am serious, if you love beef one day you should try this meat.
However, even if you head down to the supermarket for a Select-grade roast, make the effort to select one with as much marbling in the meat as you can find. The fat strewn through the muscle adds flavor, mouth-feel, and juiciness. I recommend at least a three-rib roast, although I have had some success with a two-rib, large-end roast. But I suggest the larger roast because I recommend aging it. This will improve both it's flavor and tenderness but will reduce the servings by one. (Note: There is some risk here of food poisoning, how much I have no way of determining. The US Government recommends cooking eveything to 160F. It's your call.)
Aging the Roast
Dry-aging beef accomplishes two things. First, some of the water in the roast's juices evaporate. This concentrates flavors just as reducing wine enhances its flavors. Second, enzymic action in the presence of oxygen breaks down muscle fibers (making the roast more tender) and creates more complex flavors (especially glutamates - umami).
Pick up the roast seven days before you plan to cook it. Choose a roast with good marbling and, a thick layer of fat (at least 1/4-inch) over the flesh. If you're lucky enough to have access to a real butcher (even at a supermarket) or to a local supplier you can request this — just be sure to give them two to three weeks warning before you plan to pick it up.
Place the roast on a rack in tray (to promote air circulation and catch any drips) on the lowest shelf in your refrigerator. But avoid the coldest corner which can freeze the roast and prevent aging. Do NOT Cover or wrap the roast. It it's wrapped it will spoil.
Let it sit, just sit, for five to seven days.
Remove from fridge and using a very sharp knife trim off the dried fat and flesh from the meat sides — don't worry about the rib side. And don’t be overly concerned about a pristine appearance with no spot of slight grey flesh or slightly brown fat. By the time it's those minor imperfections will disappear.
Cooking
Restaurants that specialize in "prime rib" typically have special ovens to cook the roasts in. The ovens are large enough to contain several primal ribs at once and are geared toward very slow cooking.
The roast is first blasted with high heat to both begin browning the meat and to kill any surface bacteria. Then they are slowly cooked, sometimes over as much as eight hours, to assure the entire roast is cooked to a uniform rare. Then if someone orders medium rare, medium, or (God forbid) well-done the meat is sliced off the bone and quickly heated to 135, 145, or 160 degrees. You can do this at home.
Recipe
This is as basic a recipe as you can imagine, but if you've followed the steps above you already created a great deal of complex flavor. Don’t futz with the work you've already done. Take it easy.
1 3-rib standing roast
3 lg cloves garlic — smashed
Kosher salt
Black pepper
2 tsp ground rosemary
3 tbsp olive oil
Rub the roast all over with the smashed garlic. Salt generously and warm, covered with plastic, on the counter for 2 hours.
Heat oven to 225F. Season roast with pepper and rosemary.
Heat olive oil in a large, heavy roasting pan over medium high heat. Brown roast on all sides, finishing bone-side down.
Place in lower third of oven and cook until center of roast reads 120F for rare or 135F for medium rare according to an instant read or probe thermometer — 3 to 4 hours. Remove from oven, tent with foil, and rest 20 minutes. There will be almost no carryover cooking, but the juices will redistribute.
Cut roast from ribs, slice, and serve.
I'll leave it to you to decide on sauce or no sauce and what to do with the goodness left in the bottom of the roasting pan. But I like tossing some par-boiled potatoes and carrots into the roasting pan and sticking the pan back in the oven at 400F while I make a port wine demi-glace to grace the meat.
Try this roast with...
Potatoes Savoyarde
Leeks with Anchovy Butter
Cranberry Mousse
7 Comments:
So if I leave it on a tray in the fridge to age, it won't go bad but will get dry and aged..I have always been afraid of doing this for fear of meat 'going bad'
Prime rib roast. My favorite roast.
Going to have to try dry aging it next time.
Zoey,
I'm not going to say it's perfectly safe, but as long as the roast is kept between 34 and 37 degrees (my bottom fridge shelf hovers is 36F) and as long as air is allowed to circulate freely around the roast (bacteria loves moisture, so the drying process is essential) it should be safe. I never cook a roast anymore without aging it. You'll end up with a singularly nasty look chunk of meat - dry, crusty, and gray - but once you've trimmed it you''l have a beatifully ruby-colored roast.
CJ,
Try it, you'll like it.
Your 130 degrees for rare is way off. I've been coking rib roasts for Thanksgiving and Christmas for many years now and when I started, I folllowed the charts that said 130 and it always came out too well done.
For Medium rare, I cook to 118 and then rest it until it gets to 128 or so and it comes out medium, not rare.
Is it really cooked at 225F? It seems like a rather low temperature. I'm used to cooking roasts at 325, hence my question.
Thank you. Love your blog.
Yummy.. I want to try this on my birthday celebration..
Little Rock Wedding
Anon1,
You're right, rare is 125 - 130 degrees, but there is almost no carry-over cooking with this low and slow method so if you pull it from the oven with an internal temp of 130 it will stay 130 even after resting for 10 or 15 minutes.
Anon2,
Yep 225F. When you cook a roast at a higher temp you heat the outside faster than heat can transfer to the inside so you wind up with a roast that's well-done on the surface, rare on the inside and everything in between in between. At 225 the heat transfers evenly from out side to inside so you end up with a roast that is well-done only where it was deliberately browned and then prefectly rare ro medium-rare throughout.
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