Quick Recap : Slow Roasted Prime Rib (#recipe)

Since there was no hand-out for today's class here are some of the key take-aways from this morning:

Having the rib roast at room temperature is essential to having the roast turn out perfectly. Usually this can mean two hours sitting out of the fridge. Keep it covered. A half hour before roasting it, season with salt and pepper. We used an herb rub this morning, that was applied about a half hour after seasoningjust before putting the roast in the oven.

To flavour the roast last year we just used salt and pepper, this year we did a bit more with an herb and garlic paste. The paste consisted of 8 finely chopped cloved of garlic, 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary finely chopped, and 1 tablesppon finely chopped thyme.

Starting with a tablespoon of oil (my inner Suze Ormon forbids you from using the really good $30+ a bottle Olive Oil) combine to form a paste, you might have to add up to an additional tablespoon of oil.  Supermarket Olive Oil and Canola Oil are ideal here.  

Roasting will be done bone side down, so rub the herb paste on the other sides. Since there was a bit of a fat cap I scored it with a sharp knife so that some of the herb rub would get stuck instead of sliding off the roast as the fat melted.

We used a 6 pound rib roast; with the oven preheated to 500F the roast went in for 15 minutes, the oven was then turned down to 325F for about and hour and a half. For rare the temperature should read 115 to 120F; for medium it should read 120 - 125F. There were a few people who went for the rare meat but the medium roasted meat seemed more popular. An oven thermometer is essential here. At an hour and a half we were only at 110F, the outside looked gorgeous at this time so appearances are not the best just, invest in a thermometer, they are worth it.

The "rules" stated baste every half hour. The store was insanely busy this morning and since I was so engaged in providing excellent customer service (yes, you may roll your eyes now) basting was totally overlooked. Whoopsie! But the roast turned out perfect!

Upon removing the roast from the oven cover it with foil and allow it to rest for 20 minutes. Since we didn't want to sit around staring at the ceiling this morning we didn't wait. The first tasting samples were good, but the last people to get samples go the better pieces as those rested a bit.

While the roast is resting, the drippings can be used to make Yorkshire Pudding. If you are intimidated about trying to pour hot fat from a hot roasting pan don't fret, I've used grapeseed oil, canola oil, and bacon fat to make yorkshire pudding. I find that when using the less falvorful oils adding a bit of ground pepper to the batter makes up for any flavour shortcomings in the oil.