I had a nearly 17-pound Prime rib roast from
Zier's, in Wilmette. I asked Dave Zier if he would "roll" the roast for me, which basically means separating most of it from the ribs but leaving them partially attached and then tying the whole roast back up. He was happy to do so and as such, after the cooking phase, handling and slicing the roast was much easier.
2 days ago, I seasoned the roast with kosher salt, black pepper and some of
G Wiv's rub, placed it on a rack on half-sheet, covered it with foil and stored it in my 35 F degree garage until this morning. At 8 am, I took the roast out of the garage and let it sit on the counter until noon. At noon, I placed the roast in an oven that had been pre-heated to 250 F and turned the oven down to 200 F. About 4 1/2 hours later, the roast reached the desired internal temperature of 130 F, which I measured with my
Thermapen. I took the roast out of the oven and cranked the oven to 450 F/convection. When the oven reached temperature, I put the roast -- which remained at 130 F and did not carry over past that -- back in the oven for about 8 minutes, rotating it 180 degrees at the halfway mark. After that 8 minutes, I let it rest briefly and sliced it. We were very pleased with the results. As you can see, the entire roast is cooked to nearly the same level, from edge to edge . . .
Whole roast, before slicing
Cross-section of roast after being completely separated from the rack
Bones
I've never found a better method than this for cooking any beef roast and I highly recommend it. Since this particular rib roast had so much exterior fat, there was no reason to hit it with a light coating of additional oil before cooking but for leaner roasts, it's certainly advised (especially when using this method), as it promotes the Maillard Reaction and helps brown the roast evenly.
=R=
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