Just Cook It! — Prime rib for Christmas dinner
Amanda Steen | Herald-Standard
Chef Mario J. Porreca seasons slow roasted prime rib of beef on the set of Just Cook It.
Amanda Steen | Herald-Standard
Featured is Chef Mario’s slow roasted prime rib of beef with creamy horseradish.
Christmas dinner is the wild card of the holiday festivities. Most people have turkey for Thanksgiving and pork for New Year’s, but what do you have for Christmas dinner?
The most common answer is probably ham, but for some reason I have always had a hard time seeing ham as the centerpiece of a meal. My Christmas dinner will include ham as one of the options, but it won’t be the star of the show.
When deciding what to prepare for Christmas dinner, I use the philosophy that variety is the spice of life. My holiday menus look something like this – Thanksgiving is turkey, Christmas Eve is seafood, New Year’s Day is pork, and later for Easter I will be making lamb. As mentioned above, these holiday menus are more or less set in stone and rarely, if ever, change. So the question again is what’s for dinner on Christmas Day?
The only star worthy protein that I don’t see on the list is beef. By process of elimination, and for the sake of variety, I hereby claim beef for Christmas Day.
Now the question becomes — what cut of beef is the best option for Christmas dinner? Whatever cut you chose, it should be a mid to high end cut and should also be large enough to serve everyone with minimal work and fuss on your part.
I can’t think of a cut of beef that meets all of these prerequisites better than prime rib. Prime rib is what I serve on Christmas and with a few pointers, you can serve delicious prime rib this Christmas, too.
Prime rib, or standing rib roast, is a cut of beef from the primal rib, which is one of the eight primal cuts of beef. The primal cuts are the pieces of meat initially separated from the carcass during butchering.
The primal cuts are the basic sections from which steaks and other subdivisions are cut.
The entire rib section is made up of ribs six through 12 of the animal. A standing rib roast can technically be anywhere from two to seven ribs. Seven ribs being a full roast and two ribs being a smaller quarter roast. The difference in the number of bones simply equates to the size of the roast – the more bones, the larger the roast.
Four bone roasts usually weigh around eight pounds and a full seven bone roast usually weighs anywhere between 12 pounds to 16 pounds. Keep in mind that the weight of the bones contributes to the weight of the roast listed above.
Another cut that is very common and very close to the prime rib is the rib eye steak.
The rib eye steak comes from removing the bones and most of the fat and lesser muscles before slicing the beef into steaks and then cooking those individual steaks.
As with many cuts of meat, the rib cut often goes by many different names when it is in fact the same cut. “Prime rib” is the most well known name but the term “prime” actually refers to the grade of the meat as opposed to the cut.
Prime rib is difficult to find at the local supermarket because most meat that’s graded “prime” is almost exclusively sold to restaurants. You can always get your roast from a restaurant supply store, or look for roast labeled either “rib roast,” “eye of the rib roast,” or “standing rib roast.”
Roasts that are labeled “eye of the rib roast” are usually the roast with the bones already removed. Preparing a roast with or without bones is a personal decision.
I always prepare a bone in rib roast because the bones contribute a lot of flavor to the meat as it roasts.
The downside to roasting a bone in rib roast is that it is a bit more difficult to carve. In my video at HeraldStandard.com, I show you how to carve a bone-in rib roast, and it’s actually very easy once you learn the proper technique.
A bone in roast will give you roughly one serving per pound, while a boneless roast will give you about two servings per pound.
When I am roasting my rib roast, I prefer to roast it on a sheet pan fitted with a roasting rack as opposed to a deep roasting pan.
Much like when roasting a turkey, I like to have more of the roast exposed in the oven.
The higher sides of the deeper roasting pan make it more difficult to achieve that golden brown crispy caramelization that we all know and love.
When seasoning my rib roast, I prefer to keep it simple.
When making a rich and delicious marbled cut of meat like a rib roast, I believe that you should let the meat speak for itself.
I rub the roast on all sides with a thin layer of extra virgin olive oil and then season it liberally with sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper.
Remember that when you serve slices of a large roast that no seasoning will be on the center of those slices as the meat roasts. Therefore it is very important to compensate for that lack of seasoning in the center with extra seasoning on the outside of the roast.
The moral of the story is: don’t be nervous when salting your rib roast.
I also like to roast my rib roast with aromatic vegetables and fresh herbs.
Aromatic vegetables are vegetables used in cooking as flavor bases, usually by sweating or sautéing.
For my rib roast I use onions, carrots, celery and garlic.
I slowly caramelize these vegetables in a sauté pan on the stove before placing half of them under the seasoned roast and the other half on top of the seasoned roast before roasting.
I also place a handful of a variety of fresh herbs underneath and on top of my roast as well to impart flavor while roasting.
Low and slow is the best way to roast a rib roast.
Roasting it at too high a temperature will cause the roast to shrink while cooking and will also make it very easy to overcook.
If you cook the center of your rib roast to medium rare the end pieces should be medium well and you will have a nice range of temperatures for your guests.
I prefer my rib roast to be medium rare, but I always have some guests who prefer theirs medium to medium well so it’s always a good idea to cover all of your bases.
I roast my rib roast in the oven at 250 degrees until it reaches an internal temperature of about 120 degrees.
When it reaches 120 degrees, I remove the herbs and aromatics from the top of the roast and then turn the oven temperature up to 450 degrees to finish the roast and give the outside that golden brown color and crispy texture.
The rib roast is done (medium rare) when the internal temperature of the very center of the meat reaches 130 degrees.
The most important tip I can give you for roasting a perfect rib roast this Christmas is to use a thermometer. Knowing the internal temperature of your beef is the only way to know for certain when it is done to your liking.
I roasted a prime rib every day for two years at one point in my cooking career. It took me about three months of cooking at least a half roast every single day for me to be able to cook a prime rib perfectly by feel without using a thermometer.
Even then I still used my thermometer to check the meat so that I could be completely certain that it was perfect.
It is a neat skill to have, but unless you want to cook a hundred or so rib roasts over the next few months – just use a thermometer.
Prime rib is one of my favorite foods to both cook and eat.
It’s also pretty impressive when you bring a huge slab of perfectly roasted beef to the dinner table for carving. Christmas is a great occasion to enjoy prime rib and if you are used to having ham there’s no rule against having both this year.
I serve both at my house every Christmas and I have never had a complaint.
Don’t forget to check out my video at HeraldStandard.com where you can watch me make my prime rib and creamy horseradish to serve with it.
Watch the video, make some beef this year, have a Merry Christmas, and – Just Cook it!
Mario J. Porreca of Belle Vernon is a food personality, author, and the host of Just Cook It on WMBS Radio 590 AM. He can be reached via his website at: www.JustCookIt.net.