Holiday Feast: Standing Rib Roast

In doing this dish, I took several recipes and more or less combined them.

For the aging process, I used a recipe from Alton Brown's Good Eats for Dry-Aged Standing Rib Roast with Sage Jus. I took some cooking hints from the current edition of the Fannie Farmer cookbook (a book we've used so much that the edition we got when we first got married literally fell apart). Most of the recipe, plus the recipe for Yorkshire Pudding (below) was sent by a friend from her copy of A Treasury of Great Recipes by Mary and Vincent Price (!).

Standing Rib Roast

I used Alton Brown's suggestion for dry aging the beef. I purchased an 8-pound rib roast. I had asked it to have four bones in, but the crazy atmosphere of the butcher right before Christmas meant my request (left earlier in the week) had been overlooked, so I ended up with 8 pounds of beef with the ribs in. No big deal, but next time...

Alton Brown states that you stand the roast up on a rack inside a roasting pan. Cover it lightly with dish towels. The towels must be changed daily. The temperature must be between 34 and 38 degrees F. If anything made me nervous about this dish, it was making sure the temperature stayed at that level. I went out and bought two thermometers to make sure the range was maintained!

Vincent and Mary Price (and the other sources) suggest removing the meat from the refrigerator a few hours before you start cooking. If the meat is around room temperature, you'll carve off some cooking time. Trim off excess fat. Preheat the oven to 525 degrees F. Place the meat on a rack, in the roasting pan, fat side up.

Do not salt the meat. You can add some spice by placing some garlic inside the meat (make a cut), near the bones. You can also rub the meat with freshly ground pepper. But salting the meat will draw juices out.

Place the roast into the oven for several minutes at the high temperature, then lower it to 350 degrees F.

I did not find that I needed to baste the meat. YMMV.

Cooking time, according to Fannie Farmer, was 20 minutes per pound, until internal temperature reached 140 degrees F. (For this, I used a birthday present, which is a digital thermometer. A wonderful device.)

When the internal temperature says the roast is done, remove it to a heated plate and let it rest for 15 or so minutes before carving. If you carve it too soon, all the juices will run out.

In the meantime, take your roasting pan and pour off most of the fat. Place the roasting pan on the stove, over low heat, and pour in about a half cup of water, red wine, or stock (remember that basic brown stock I made the other day?). Scrape off the brown bits. Pour the mixture into a pot, add additional stock and wine, and bring to a boil. Let cook until it is reduced by half, check seasonings (you'll probably need to add salt, as you did not salt the meat, and I did not salt the stock to begin with).

Serve on a platter with Yorkshire Pudding.

Yorkshire Pudding

This recipe is for six puddings; I doubled it for today's meal.

Prepare the batter at least an hour before you bake it. I've heard some people say they prepare it at least a day ahead of time and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight. In any case, it should be at room temperature when you are about to bake it.

Mix 7/8 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add gradually 1/2 cup milk, stirring all the time (I used a food processor). Beat two eggs until fluffy and pale yellow. Add this to the batter, continuing to stir. Add 1/2 cup water. Beat vigorously (or food process!) until the mixture bubbles.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Place some lard (this worked quite well; you need a fat that has a very high smoke point!) into the bottom of each "well" of a muffin tin. Put in hot oven and heat lard until it is almost smoking. Remove muffin tin from oven. Spoon some of the batter into each "well", dividing equally.

Bake in the hot oven for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees F. and continue to bake for 15 minutes longer.

Remove puddings from the "wells". Serve with beef and gravy.

Posted by Fred Kiesche at December 25, 2007 07:20 PM