Prime Rib

Prime Rib seems to be the thing to eat on Christmas Eve, so I figured I'd give it a go. Every time I think of prime rib, I think of mocha, our first dog. We were really determined not to feed her people food, ever. Well... that didn't last long. It was maybe a couple months after we got her, we spent a long night out at dinner to Varanese (yes, we go there a lot). We felt bad about leaving her in her cage for so long, so I decided to cut up some of my prime rib that I had leftovers from. The minute the meat touched her mouth, she didn't even chew. She straight swallowed it! And kept begging for more ever since. I can't blame her, it was pretty good, and you really should never turn down great food, whether human or dog!

Ingredients:

2 & 1/2 lb. rib roast
6 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
salt and pepper
2 & 1/2 cups red wine (I used a pinot noir)

A good roast is so simple in ingredients, but if you don't watch it closely, it can really turn a great dish into a mediocre or even bad dish.

Make sure you meat is at room temperature before you do any cooking.

Place the garlic slices underneath pockets of fat. You can also slice small cracks in the meat to stuff it in, but my piece of roast had enough marbling throughout that I didn't have to do too much of that.

Rub both sides of roast in enough salt and pepper to your liking.

Preheat oven to 500 F. Yeah, this is going to be a high heat roasting method.

Place meat in a roasting dish and bake in oven for about 20-25 minutes.

Turn heat down to 325 F and roast for another 5-8 minutes.

Then increase heat to 425 F and cook for about 15 minutes longer.

Let rest of cutting board for 10 minutes. While you're waiting, you can make a quick jus.

Place the roasting pan on the stove and heat under high heat. Deglaze the pan with about 2 cups or more of red wine and make sure you lift up the brown bits, or sucs. Add salt and pepper to taste and reduce sauce by about 1/2.

Cut the roast, it should be a nice medium rare, and serve with mashed potatoes topped with the jus.

I originally cooked my prime rib for about 40 minutes, and I duly regretted it. Andy said it tasted fine, but I knew I overcooked the meat... at least for my liking. It was nice well done I think, but I would have liked to have seen more pink in there. So I adjusted the directions above for what I think would be a great medium rare. Enjoy!