For the last bunch of years on NYE, my family along with 3 other families, have a special dinner at my house where we each do a dish - I do the meat! My favorite thing to make, if you couldn't tell. For the last 3 years, including this one, we have done a beautiful prime rib roast. What a way to ring in the new year, right? Well this year I am a little nervous because I switched up my cooking process. I know.... I am supposed to try it out before applying it to such an important evening. This year, I am trying the reverse sear method. Instead of searing first, you do it last. We are having a beautiful, 14.5 lb'er. Is lb'er even a word? I brought it home, rubbed it with kosher salt, wrapped it tightly in plastic and stuck it in the fridge. Took it out around 9am on New Years Eve to let it come up to room temp.
In the past, I've used a foolproof method that starts with the oven at 500. Multiply the exact weight of your roast and multiply it by 5. That is how many minutes you cook before turning the oven off and leaving it alone for 2 hours without ever opening the door. That works great, but when I read a few things about reverse searing, I got intrigued. To season the roast, in a small bowl I mixed together 8 cloves of garlic, minced, 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh thyme, and a heaping tablespoon of dried Italian seasoning. Stir in some extra virgin olive oil until you get a mixture a little looser than a paste and smear it all over your roast. Make sure you get it nice and coated.
So this time, I started out low and slow, 250 for about an hour. Then, I started turning up the heat by 50 degrees each half hour until it reached 500. This took a total of 3 and a half hours. We were shooting for a 7pm dinner time but didn't make it. I took it out at 7 and let it rest while we got the delicious sides finished up. I would say the most important thing about cooking it this way was using a probe thermometer. By doing that, I was able to closely monitor the internal temp because good LORD you don't want to overcook this (expensive!) wonderful piece of meat.
When it came out of the oven, it was 120 degrees. Letting it sit and rest for about half an hour got it up to 125 and it was perfect. Nice, beautiful crust on the outside, rare in the middle, medium rare near the ends.
I have found, the best way to slice this is to follow the curve of the bones down the meat and cut the ribs off and then slice the beef. The beef ribs are so good too!!! To accompany the roast, Mary made creamed spinach and Yorkshire pudding, Annie made twice baked potatoes and Joe made spinach salad.
And there you have it. Without pictures of the beautiful salad, the appetizers and our cocktails but you got the idea.
We hope everyone has a happy, healthy and prosperous 2016 and we'll see you soon!
L&M
