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December 21, 2005

A Christmas Roast Beast Primer

By virtue of long standing tradition, Casa de Major Dad always has Prime Rib for Christmas dinner, one of three Alien movies on the tube and a glass of the Macallan never far from hand (stinky cigars, too, if Bingley's in town). I thought I'd give you all a recipe heads up, as we'll be blogging this, but it'll be too late if you wanted to cook along. The basic recipe began as Marfa Stewart's (hence very fussy), but has been jazzed up and thoroughly ths'ified. We loves it and thought you might, too.

Roast Beast à la ths via Marfa

1 three-rib prime-rib, first cut, trimmed and tied
1 T freshly ground pepper *
2 T coarse salt *
3 short-ribs, tied **
1 1/2 cups dry, red wine

* Instead of S & P, we use a schmear consisting of about 1 t salt, ½ t dried thyme, 1/8 t ground celery seed, 1/2 t sugar, ¼ t pepper, ¼ t onion powder, ¼ t garlic powder, ¼ t arrowroot

** We don’t use these.

NOTE: Remove roast from fridge at least an hour prior to starting to let meat come to room temperature.

1. Place oven rack on lower level. Preheat oven to 450°. Rub roast all over (lovingly) with either S & P or schmear. Transfer to heavy 13 by 16 metal roasting pan. (We line the bottom with chunk onions, garlic, carrots and parsley, sprinkle with excess schmear, set roast atop.) Place short-ribs in pan.

2. Cook 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325° and continue cooking until instant read thermometer*** inserted in thick end of roast (not touching bone) reaches 115°, about 1 hour and 25 minutes (less if roast is room temp). If it hasn't, return to oven, check temp at ten minutes intervals. (*** We use a digital constant read thermometer. It saves opening and shutting the oven door, all that lifting and lets you know exactly where the roast is temp-wise ~ great for timing the side dishes!)

3. Transfer roast to platter; set aside in warm spot for juices to collect. (As roast rests, temperatures will increase about 10°. DO NOT TENT or crust will get soggy. Adjust oven temp to 425°. (ONLY IF you're also making Yorkshire pudding.)

4. Pour fat and all drippings out of pan into fat separator and set aside.

5. Place roasting pan over med-hi heat. Pour red wine into pan; scrape bottom with wooden spoon, scooping up crispy bits to deglaze pan. Cook until reduced by half, 5 to 8 minutes. Place fine sieve in medium heat-proof bowl. Pour juices into strainer. Using wooden spoon, press down on solids to extract juices. Discard solids. Cover bowl tightly; keep warm in barely simmering saucepan with 1 inch water. Reserve pan drippings for Yorkshire Pudding.

If you'd like to know how we do our Yorkshire Pudding, lemme know.

Posted by tree hugging sister at December 21, 2005 11:58 AM