Ho ho homygoodness.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving, right? I just finished cleaning up after Turkey day, and lo, the Yule season is up on me like a hippo on a tree stump.
Thankfully, I like the holidays. For the first time in the history of Christmas, we’ll be spending them at our house. It’s a big change. And though at times like these we wish we lived closer to family, we’re also looking forward to establishing some holiday traditions that don’t center around airports.
In that spirit of holiday cheer, we decided to have some friends over to celebrate the season. And celebrate, in this case, means a standing rib roast.
A standing rib roast is a fantastic piece o’ beef. It is essentially the ribeye, left together as a whole roast instead of partitioned out into individual steaks.You’ll sometimes see this cut offered as Prime Rib, though the Prime designation comes as a measurement of intramuscular fat – a test my particular critter was not subjected to. Grassfed beef has less intramuscular fat than grain fed, so the Prime designation isn’t really applicable. Most of the beef you find in your grocery store also isn’t Prime, it’s either Choice or Select, with the Prime cuts going only to restaurants or the odd specialty meat market. But I digress.
Joining me are some fellow Kansas expats – Allan, Ben, and Chris. Everyone calls them the Alphabet.
No one calls them that.
The day began with a grocery shopping binge. One of the lovely things about having a veggie delivery service and a cow in a freezer is that you don’t often have to shop. However, L.O.V.E. doesn’t deliver anchovies, so off to the store I go.
Back from that, there’s no time to lose. People are showing up a bit after six for dinner at seven, and I want to do this right. If all goes according to plan, it’ll be a cavalcade of courses for the Kansas cavalry, and time is most definitely not on my side.
First up, I whip together a simple syrup infused with a little star anise. Quick and easy. Add a little grapefruit juice, and into the freezer. More on that later.
Next, I cube up a french loaf I’ve been saving for that purpose. Olive oil, a little salt, and into the oven. Fifteen minutes to croutons.
I also pull the roast from the fridge where it’s been thawing. Into the microwave. No, I’m not nuking my rib roast. I’m putting it up high and in an enclosed space so that my ravenous canine will not devour it in advance of tonight’s festivities.
I'm waiting.
The roast needs to come to room temperature before it goes into the oven to make sure that it cooks evenly. Cold spots or, heaven forbid, icy spots would make weird, super-rare patches in the finished dish. That wouldn’t be good. Also not good would be for my dog to scavenge up an eight pound lunch, leaving my guests and I to nibble saltines and well-toasted croutons.
Roast coming up to room temp, I turn to it’s accoutrements. I want to do this old school. No, older. I want to do this Ye Olde School(e). I want to go positively medieval this evening. I want Yorkshire pudding.
Yorkshire pudding is a traditional accompaniment to a standing rib roast. In days of yore, the lord and lady of the castle would eat first. Afterwards, the landed gentry would tuck in, followed by the servants, serfs, dogs, and various pre-democratic rabble. (Come! See the violence inherent in the system!)
In a situation like this, every molecule of lipid or protein was very valuable. To maximize the nutritive takeaway of the meal, kitchen staff would pour a rough batter into the roasting pan after a large roast was prepared, scraping up the fond and little burnt-on bits of goodness encrusted therein. This batter would rise into a vaguely meat-flavored bread-type-thing. Bingo bango: Yorkshire pudding.
I’m gonna be making my pudding during the twenty minutes or so after the meat comes out of the oven, while it’s resting. So I need my batter ready to go. Which means I make it now. Flour, salt, eggs, and milk into a bowl under plastic wrap. Into the fridge.
Serving roast beef without horseradish is vaguely sketchy. It’s like buying prescription meds from the back of a van. Sure, they might be okay, but something about it just isn’t right. Offputting. Even vaguely sinister. So I think I’ll make a horseradish sauce. Sour cream, lemon, ground horseradish, and we’re good.
Pause for station identification. Papa’s pooped.
Back at it. I’m doing a Caesar salad with this, and I’m making the dressing from scratch. I’ll need to have all that standing by so that when the time comes I don’t look like an idiot any more than I have to.
Did I mention I’ve never made any of these dishes before? Well, I haven’t.
I prep some minced garlic, eggs, Worcestershire, salt, anchovy, olive oil, lemon juice, and grated Parmesan. Ready to go when the time comes.
I think I’m in pretty good shape. I have a little extra time. Maybe I’ll go take a nap.
Maybe not.
One of our dinner guests this evening is Captain Bacon himself, Baconchef Ben. He’s worked bacon into pies, cheesecake, sushi, salads (natch), vodka, and, I believe, ice cream. Last I heard he was working on a bacon-based vaccine for swine flu, which really makes sense in karmic justice sorta way. (My proposed campaign: “Baconex. It’s H1N-sane!”)
Since Ben’s coming, I figure I’ll try something a little adventurously porcine. NPR had an article on bacon a few weeks ago. I’ll use this downtime to make Chocolate Chip Bacon cookies.
Mmm... cookies.
The cookies turned out really well. I gotta say, I’m a little surprised. They don’t use as much butter as normal chocolate chip cookies because they can rely on bacon fat. They’re a little smoky, yet chocolaty and sweet. Just a little chewy when you get a bacon bit. I’m down.
Mmm... bacon.
My aforementioned canine is all about these cookies. However, they’re a bacon-flavored chocolate-delivery device. Which is extraordinarily bad, because chocolate is bad news for dogs. Even 110 pound dogs. After a close call, they go into tupperware and on a high shelf.
T-minus two hours. Roast goes in, bone side down. The fat on top will drip down and keep the meat marinated, though I’ll likely have to help it along with a little basting now and again. If the rack roast isn’t tied, the meat will separate during the cooking process, which is bad news. The butcher tied mine, so I’m in good shape.
I roast the roast at 425 for fifteen minutes or so to sear, then 375 to cook to an internal temp of 120. That’s well below medium rare, but the temp will rise as the roast rests.
Ding dong. The Alphabet’s arrived. A little nog, and officially ’tis the season.
The dinner train pulls away from the station.
Course One - Appetizer.
Cream Cheese with Jalapeno and Strawberry Jelly. Chocolate Chip Bacon Cookies.
Okay, the cream cheese thing is dead simple. Has to be, because I have a lot of other stuff popping. And it’s sorta festive, because it’s red and green, ya dig?
And I know cookies aren’t really an appetizer. But they have bacon in them. Let’s break some rules.
Tommy Thermometer says the roast is getting close.
Course Two – Salad
Caesar Salad in this case. Dressing ingredients are prepped, and it takes about thirty seconds to pull the emulsion together. Bada bing.
Homemade croutons, romaine, caesar, and parmesan. Chilled forks.
Roast was closer than I thought. As in, it’s done.
Salad’s good, but I got stuff to do. I pull the roast, foil it, and stash it in the dog-proof microwave to rest. Pan drippings go into muffin tins, topped with the Yorkshire pudding batter I prepped. I boost the oven, and when it says 425, in goes the batter.
One fork. One pan of frozen grapefruit juice-n-stuff that I had working from several hours ago, and we’re on the next course.
Course Three – Palate Cleanser
Grapefruit Star Anise Granata. I scrape the frozen sheet of liquid with a with a fork, making instant shaved ice. Peach-colored shaved ice. It goes in champagne flutes. Or, since I had them handy, brandy snifters. Or, since several of those got dirty in the flurry of kitchen activity, Burgundy glasses.
Served with chilled spoons. I take a little heat (no pun intended) for chilling spoons for my palate cleanser. I’m a nerd, yo. Welcome to my world.
Course Four – Standing Rib Roast with Yorkshire pudding
Roast is rested, and comfortably reading in the 132 degree range. Medium rare. The puddings need a minute, so I carve the roast.
I snip the string holding it together, and shear the bones off the roast. They come off in one neat slab. I slice the roast into half-inch thick slices. The meat looks fantastic, if I do say so. Pair with a popover Yorkshire pudding and a nice Zin, and we’re golden.
I’m gonna pause for a moment. This was a good one.
Course Five – Dessert
Cherries Jubiliee. Vanilla ice cream, topped with thickened cherry preserves, flambeed with brandy.
Let’s blow the doors off. (Perhaps literally).
But first, let’s cheat a little. Rather than making preserves from scratch, I used a good cherry pie filling.
Heat cherries. Heat brandy. Scoop ice cream. Add cherries. Add brandy. Add lighter. Happy Fourth of July.
That guy sure looks like he knows what he's doing.
Well, that was the plan.
Everything went beautifully until the Light It Up portion of the event, wherein I realized that my brandy was either too hot, or not hot enough. No fire.
I was expecting Independence Day. I got more like Arbor Day.
Still damn tasty, though.
My dessert tastes like hill people milk.
The Wife Says: A success. The courses came out in well-timed succession and without a hitch, save for my non-flaming flambe.
The roast was medium rare, right in the sweet spot. And there’s a reason people pair this cut with horseradish. Paired nicely with the meat, the heat cut neatly with the sour cream. Her personal favorite was the Yorkshire pudding.
The Caesar-from-scratch also won praise, and the granata palate-cleanser was a dead simple addition that won some giggles both because of it’s tastiness and it’s outright pretension. But if you’re gonna bother to make a big thing outta your meal, make a big thing outta your meal, right?
Final Verdict: Everything turned out well, despite a minor mishap.
But frankly, I could have served ketchup on cardboard and still counted the thing a success. At the risk of sounding sappy, the real feat here was turning a busy day into a festive night, complete with family, good friends, and a moment to chat before breaking out into trips home and more frenzied expressions of holiday cheer.
It wasn’t the first time anybody’s ever cooked up a standing rib roast, and with any luck, it won’t be my last. But with a little luck, and some good tidings in the New Year, it may become one of our new holiday traditions.
And I think the Alphabet enjoyed it.
Allan Alters space time in his immediate vicinity.
Ben Believes Bacon is the reason for the season.
Chris is Content with his Festivus festivities.
Have a happy holiday, everyone. See you in 2010.
jared
