STANDING RIB ROAST

BY FAR ONE OF THE MOST SATISFYING AND CELEBRATORY cuts of meat to roast is a rack of beef ribs. It’s what our family roasts for Christmas dinner most years, a symbol of abundance and an impressive, delicious centerpiece for a holiday meal. This cut comes from the front rib section of the cow and leads into the strip loin farther down, a leaner but equally delicious roast. The standing rib roast (cut individually for grilling, these become rib-eye steaks) comprises the loin (the main lean muscle), the fat cap (an outer layer of striated meat and fat), intramuscular fat, and rib bones. All of these components come together as a kind of meaty chamber-orchestra suite when properly roasted.

The exterior fat cap will become well done, but it protects the precious inner loin from the dry oven heat, lacing it with such abundant fat that it remains tender and juicy even at high temperatures. The intramuscular fat and ribs, too, help keep everything juicy inside.

When given the choice to roast meat (or fish) with bones or without, always roast on the bone.

The standing rib roast provides an important lesson in roasting: bones temper the harsh, dry heat of the oven. Notice how much rarer the meat is close to the bone than an inch away; the bone tempers the heat, and while the roast rests the hot bone will subtly convey the heat to the meat. Perhaps more importantly, roasted bones are delicious to gnaw on. The late San Francisco chef Judy Rodgers, whom I made no bones about admiring excessively, used to serve roasted duck bones on Halloween at the Zuni Café—a duck skeleton! She would break down ducks for other cuts but save the bones for pleasure. She’d coat them in oil or fat, add a sprinkling of salt, and roast them at high heat till they looked and smelled too delicious to bear. Yes, you can just roast bones and chew on them, crack them with your teeth if they’re small enough, and suck out the marrow. Roasted bones are deeply satisfying, a visceral affirmation of our omnivorous nature.

1 standing rib roast (1 pound/450 grams per person)

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

• UNWRAP the roast, cover it with a light coat of salt, and refrigerate it uncovered for up to 4 days. REMOVE it from the refrigerator 6 hours before cooking.
• PREHEAT the oven to 450°F/230°C.
• COVER the exterior of the roast with pepper. PLACE it, rib side down, on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or in a shallow roasting pan (with or without a rack) and PUT it in the oven.
• REDUCE the oven temperature to 225°F/110°C and ROAST until the internal temperature on an instant-read or cable thermometer reads 120°F/49°C (very rare), 125°F/52°C (rare), or 130°F/54°C (medium-rare), depending on how you like it. This should take about 25 minutes per pound/50 minutes per kilo, give or take. (Convection will speed up the cooking by about 10 minutes per pound/20 minutes per kilo; however, when roasting at low temperatures, I believe that slower is better.)
• REMOVE from the oven to a cutting board (preferably one with a moat, to catch the delicious juices) and LET it rest for 30 minutes.
• CARVE between each rib and SERVE.

 

THE FINER POINTS

SALT

Salt discourages spoilage bacteria and penetrates the muscle. I typically buy the roast 3 to 4 days before I cook it. I salt it the day I buy it and refrigerate it, uncovered, on a baking sheet. (If space is an issue, don’t worry; buying it several days ahead is optimal but not required.) I don’t cover it because I want the exterior to dry out as much as possible to better facilitate browning.

TEMPERING

Never put a roast straight from the refrigerator into the oven because the outside will become hot long before the chilled center even reaches rare. The roast needs to sit out at room temperature for several hours. If you have a very large roast, it will take several more hours to cook. So plan ahead, working your way backward from the time you intend to serve it: 30 minutes of resting, several hours of roasting, and several hours of sitting at room temperature.

You can use a roasting pan and rack if you wish (it does look prettier), but a roast rests on the edges of the ribs and so has air circulating around it regardless of what you cook it in or on. The key is the air circulation, so don’t try to roast in a deep pot. I salt, refrigerate, temper, and roast all on the same baking sheet.

TEMPERATURE

There is no single “right” approach to cooking a standing rib roast, though all methods follow a similar rationale. The heat needs to be high enough to let the roast achieve a nicely browned surface, yet low enough—and for long enough—to allow the interior to heat to rare or medium-rare without overcooking the portions of the meat closer to the exterior. Marlene, my colleague and chief recipe tester, cooks a rib roast several times a year. She sometimes uses a high-heat method, which works well but leaves a mess and makes the oven smoke like the devil. The appeal of this method is that it’s a faster cook time, so use it if you have time constraints. Preheat the oven to 500°F/260°C (or 475°F/245°C if you have convection). Put the room-temperature roast in the oven and roast for 5 minutes per pound/10 minutes per kilo, and then turn off the oven. Let the roast finish cooking in the turned-off oven for 90 minutes or, if you’re using a cable thermometer, till it reaches the desired temperature. Remove the roast from the oven and let it rest for 15 to 30 minutes. You will be left with an excellent roasted exterior, a beautiful medium-rare interior, and a difficult-to-clean roasting pan and fat-spattered oven. When not pressed for time, Marlene prefers to roast this cut at 225°F/110°C for 25 minutes per pound/50 minutes per kilo.

Step 1. Season a standing rib roast with pepper and plenty of salt.

Step 2. A perfectly seasoned rib roast.

Step 3. Having been seasoned several days in advance, the rib roast, on a sheet tray lined with parchment paper, is ready for the oven.

Step 4. To carve the roast, remove the loin from the ribs (reserve the ribs for those who deserve them).

Step 5. Removed from the ribs, the roast can be sliced to whatever thickness you wish.

I don’t know who originated the blowtorch method, but I wrote about it with Thomas Keller and Dave Cruz in the cookbook Ad Hoc at Home. If you give the exterior a quick blast with a blowtorch before putting it in the oven, it jump-starts the Maillard reaction (Chef Cruz’s method calls for roasting at 275°F/135°C to an internal temperature of 128°F/53°C, about 2 hours per pound/4 hours per kilo). The blowtorch method works for all cuts of meat.

Regardless of what method you use, I strongly urge you to use a digital thermometer to determine doneness. I prefer a cable thermometer that allows me to watch the internal temperature while it cooks.

SERVING

I like to serve a rich roasted beef stock with a standing rib roast, both to keep the meat warm and moist and to flavor other items on the plate (mashed potatoes and/or Yorkshire pudding, for example). To make a rich beef stock, follow the instructions for Brown Veal Stock (here), replacing the veal bones with meaty beef bones.

I also prepare a horseradish sauce by folding prepared horseradish into whipped cream and adding some salt and lots of black pepper.