Perfect Prime Rib

My husband Jack is here today with his recipe and tutorial for making a Perfect Prime Rib. His approach is actually a little different than most recipes you see online these days – but it is what he learned in culinary school and it has always resulted in a perfect prime rib roast at work or at home! Here is Jack in his own words:

Hi everyone – this is Jack. Let’s start off by forgetting everything you know about roasting a prime rib of beef.

Two of the very first lessons I learned years ago when I interned with a decorated chef were these rules:

First, NEVER salt the rib roast just before roasting,
Second, ALWAYS cook the roast low and slow – and wait until the end to brown.

(I know – this is completely counter to what most chefs teach these days where they have you start off with a very high heat.)

For my first lesson with that chef, we roasted four very large steam ship rounds of beef. These are those giant pieces of beef you see a chef carving at a restaurant buffet line with a large bone sticking out the top. The same principals told here apply to those large cuts of beef as well as a smaller prime rib roast you would make at home – or for that matter, any roasted muscle meat.

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What I was taught was to salt and season the roast the night before and allow the roast to sit overnight uncovered under refrigeration. The salt draws out the moisture and then – only with time – it grabs the seasonings and infuses it back into the meat. (If you salt just before you roast, the same chemical reaction will happen, except the juices will be at the bottom of the pan, instead of in the roast where they belong.)

Secondly, roasting low and slow and browning at the end will guarantee that the roast will be the same doneness throughout, instead of red in the center and over cooked towards the outer edge. If the prime rib is truly done right – only about 1/16 of an inch from the outer edge will be cooked more than the rest.

A few more comments: In the below recipe, I include a step to roast off beef bones prior to cooking the roast. I do this for a few reasons. Cooking the roast as I described above will leave you zero drippings for an Au Jus or for Yorkshire Pudding, because the juices stay in the roast where they belong. So cooking the bones down in our recipe is solely for the Au Jus we serve with this, as well as to get some nice beef fat for Yorkshire Pudding (you can see that recipe here). However if you want just the beef, feel free to omit that step.

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I know this is a lot of information – but the resulting Perfect Prime Rib roast will be superb! P.S. We like to serve our prime rib with a Creamy Horseradish Sauce and Yorkshire Pudding.

Perfect Prime Rib

★★★★★
5 from 4 reviews

Prep Time: 12 hours 15 mins
Cook Time: 5 hours 30 mins
Total Time: 17 hours 45 minutes
Yield: 6 servings

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Ingredients

1 3-rib bone-in Prime rib roast (about 6½ to 7 pounds)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
5 pounds beef bones including meat and fat, such as necks, chuck bones, etc. I found neck bones on sale as well as some fatty rib pieces
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 large garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1/3 cup red wine such as merlot
2 cups water
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon gravy color and seasoning sauce such as Kitchen Bouquette

Instructions

Place the beef on a platter and coat with oil, salt and pepper and refrigerate uncovered overnight fat side up.
Five hours before serving, heat the oven to 450 degrees F.
Pull roast from refrigeration and let sit at room temperature while you roast the bones and fat.
In roasting pan place beef bones and fat, salt, pepper and oil and roast 30 minutes.
Turn the bones and fat and roast 30 more minutes.
Reduce the oven to 250 degrees F and leave oven door open so the oven cools down to this new setting.
Remove pan from oven and place the garlic over the top of the bones then place the roast over that, fat side up.
Insert a probe thermometer into the fattest part of the roast and set alarm temperature to 125 degrees F for medium rare.
Our 6 ¼ pound roast took exactly 3½ hours to cook to an internal temperature of 125 degrees F. It will continue to cook outside of the oven to the proper medium rare doneness.
Remove beef to a platter and cover loosely with foil for 20 minutes to rest, no less.
Increase oven temperature to 450 degrees F.
Place roasting pan with bones on stove top and add wine to deglaze.
When wine has almost evaporated, add water, Worcestershire sauce and gravy color and simmer until liquid has reduced to about a cup to a cup and a half. Strain out solids and pour Au Jus into sauce pan to heat when needed.
After the roast has rested for 20 minutes, remove probe and place roast back on roasting pan and into hot oven and brown for 15-20 minutes or until desired crispiness.
Remove from oven, let sit five more minutes and carve.
Heat Au Jus to hot and serve on the side or over the slices.
Serve Horseradish sauce on the side; recipe coming this week
With a three bone rib roast, three slices will have meat only and three will have bone in.
One last note; your roast may or may not have the end of the rib bones protruding out of the end. Either way, no change to cooking method, just wanted to point out that it is sold both ways.