Prime Rib Revisited

Christmas Day, 2017

You all may remember our couple of posts from last year here and the one where we sous-vide our prime rib which I thought turned out great, Kevin was a little less pleased than I. So this year we got back to basics by slow roasting.

Both, the sous vide and the roasting started out the same, with seasoning and pre-searing. But that's about where the similarities end. After a little research online I found a method of slow roasting. It took some doing to find one I liked before I came across a recipe (can't remember where) that had the key pieces of information I was looking for; temperature and time. Their recommendation was 200F (93C) for 45 minutes per pound, so for 7.7lbs (3.5kg) this would take 5 3/4 hours. With getting the roast in the oven but 1:30PM, we thought we would have dinner on the table by 7:30 or a little earlier. Perfect!

However....it got to 127F over an hour early! Nothing else was even close to ready and our guest, David (who provided this lovely roast) wasn't even here yet. Yikes! With some hustling and playing with oven temperature (including just turning off the oven) we were able to stabilize it ultimately getting it no higher than 137F. By the time we had some drinks and conversation and first course (lobster bisque - Yum!) the roast had dropped back down. A little too low, if you ask me. Even though it really was quite perfectly done, it was cooler than I would have liked when plated. The au jus helped, but still, a little warmer would have been nice.

With all the hassle of maintaining the temperature and worrying about overcooking I'm reminded about the definite benefits of the sous vide method where of this worry is taken away. That being said, the texture of the meat came out somewhat superior with this slow roast than what we've managed in the sous vide. Granted, in the end this time, we cooked it to a slightly higher temp than we have targeted with the sous vide. Both methods have their benefits and drawbacks.

Perhaps next time we'll try the sous vide at a higher temp and see if that gets us to the same texture.