Prime Rib Roast
By Michael · from our van kitchen
Tomorrow night was Christmas Eve, dinner at my sister’s house, and I was on prime rib for everybody. There were about 15 people. I love prime rib, and I hadn’t made one in a long time.
My first plan was to cook it in our new van. The problem is the oven in the van only goes down to 320°F. I don’t know why it doesn’t go any lower, but that means I can’t cook anything low heat in it, and prime rib is all about low heat. A little bit of a bummer. So this one went in a regular house oven back home in New York. Watch me make it.
The roast and the dry brine
The roast was Angus beef, choice grade, from Target, almost 7 lbs with two bones in it. I trimmed some of the fat off the top, patted it dry, and put it on a wire rack. Most people season prime rib with just salt and pepper. I used my salt, pepper and garlic blend, the same one I use on all my steaks right now. Then it sat uncovered in the fridge for about 20 hours to dry out the outside.
Plan your time. I needed to set aside about 5 hours on the day just for the cook.
Low and slow, then a hot finish
At 225°F the roast takes a long time, and that’s the point. I kept a probe in the middle and pulled it at 120°F, covered it loosely in foil and let it rest. Then I took it over to my sister’s. Right before dinner, Spencer helped me butter it up, all over, and it went in at 500°F for about 15 minutes to get the crust. The nice thing about doing it this way is you don’t have to rest it again after the hot oven. It’s ready to carve.
My first au jus
This was actually the first time I ever made au jus. We had just bought my mom a pressure cooker for Christmas, so I made it in there and showed her how to use it at the same time. The onions take a while to caramelize, about 20 minutes. One hour under pressure is something like three hours on the stove top. When I opened it, everything was so tender you could squish it. I strained it twice, seasoned it, and finished it with butter, which I saw in a recipe. It came out tasting really nice.
How it went
Really tender. It came out really good. Some of the guests had just been to Peter Luger the day before, so they were comparing. When I asked Spencer if he wanted pizza or steak, he said pizza. I did get him to try a little bit of it.
I’ve also done prime rib with the sous vide a couple of times, including once in the van, but that’s a long cook, something like 16 to 24 hours. For a big party, the low oven was the way to go. Any fat trimmings go into the freezer for homemade beef tallow.
Ingredients
Prime rib
- 1 bone-in prime rib roast, almost 7 lb with two bones
- A salt, garlic and pepper seasoning blend (I use Kinder's The Blend), used liberally
- Butter, to rub all over before the final blast
Au jus
- 3 large onions
- 1 stalk of celery
- About 2 to 3 lb carrots
- Garlic
- Fresh rosemary, sage and thyme
- About 4 cups beef stock, plus a little more (I used instant beef bone broth packets, one packet in 8 oz hot water makes one cup)
- Pepper
- Salt, to taste
- A nice piece of butter
You'll also need
- A wire rack and tray
- A probe thermometer
- Aluminum foil
- A pressure cooker with a sauté setting
- A colander and a fine strainer
Steps
- The day before, pat the roast dry and trim off some of the fat on top. I save the trimmings in a zip bag in the freezer to make beef tallow later.
- Set the roast on a wire rack and season it all over, liberally. Give the outside a good rub.
- Leave it in the fridge uncovered for as long as you can to dry brine. I had about 20 hours.
- Put the probe thermometer right in the center of the roast and preheat the oven to 225°F.
- Roast it low and slow until the inside hits 120°F. Mine took about 4 to 5 hours. It was at 114°F in the third hour.
- Take it out, take out the probe, and cover it loosely with aluminum foil. Let it rest about 45 minutes.
- While the roast cooks, make the au jus. Cut up the onions, celery and carrots. Sauté the onions on high in the pressure cooker until they brown and caramelize. It took me about 20 minutes.
- Add the garlic. Then add a scoop of the beef stock and scrape up everything stuck to the bottom of the pot so it doesn't burn.
- Roughly chop the rosemary, sage and thyme (it doesn't have to be fine) and stir them in. Add the rest of the vegetables and the beef stock, plus a little pepper.
- Pressure cook for an hour. I let mine sit another hour after that while the pressure came down on its own.
- Pour everything through a colander. Everything will be super tender. Keep the liquid, then strain it again through a finer strainer.
- Season with salt and pepper and stir in a piece of butter. I froze what I didn't need and heated up a portion to bring to dinner.
- When you're ready to serve, rub butter all over the roast, put the probe back in, and give it 10 to 15 minutes at 500°F to get a nice crust.
- You don't have to rest it again, because it already rested after the 225°F cook. Take out the bones and carve.
Amounts are what I said in the video. Where I didn't measure, it says "to taste". Cook it your way.
