The Best Prime Rib You’ll Ever Make (Restaurant-Quality) | Epicurious 101

I'm Frank Proto, professional chef and culinary instructor, and today I'm going to show you the best way to roast a prime rib. We're talking juicy, tender, delicious prime rib. This is prime rib 101. You look at a prime rib, we're talking about it being a primal cut, which means it's kind of from the center back of the animal, whereas a prime piece of meat has more to do with the grating of the animal. And that has to do with the marbling of the fat in the piece of meat. So this is an expensive piece of meat, but usually it's served for a celebration and it serves a lot of people. So it's worth putting the time and effort in so that you get this right. The only prep I'm really going to do to this roast right now is what some people call a dry brine. Basically, I'm just going to salt the meat, put it on a rack, leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight. It's going to kind of tighten up the meat a little. It's going to give us a little flavor and it's going to help us get a juicier end product. Some people with this cut of meat will take this fat cap off. They'll cut back to the bones where they French it. I like it kind of au natural, right? I leave the fat on. There's like some bits and pieces here that I think are tasty. And this fat cap does shrink up a little, but I like fat. The fat kind of drips onto my roast, adds some fat to the pan. So the fat kind of equals flavor here and I don't want to trim that off. Don't be afraid to ask your butcher to dress this prime rib the way you want it. I like five bones, fat cap on, minimal trimming. I want the rack on there so that air can travel underneath this. So when it sits in the fridge, I'm getting airflow around it. I'm not necessarily dry aging, but that's kind of the idea is to dry it out just a little. So what I'm going to do now is I'm not going to be shy with the salt. I'm going to season up that fatty area really well and I'm going to rub it in. I'm going to rub it into the sides as well. I'm going to get the bottom here, right? But I'm using a fair amount of salt. I'm not being shy, but get it on there. And the part of the reason why I lay the salt on thick here is that we're only seasoning the outside of this piece of meat. Once I cut into this, there's no seasoning in the middle. So having that nice salty exterior, salty crust is going to season our meat really well. This piece of meat is about 13 pounds. This is probably more than enough for six to eight people. So what I like to look for is that the red meat in here has a lot of fat or a nice intramuscular fat. There's a nice bit of fat running through. This also has our bones in here. And I like to leave the bone in because usually when there's bone there, it helps protect the meat. You get a juicier product in the end. So that's all the pre-prep I really do. Putting this in the fridge salted for 12 to 24 hours helps season the meat. It dries it out a little and helps concentrate the flavors. And at the end of the day, it gives us a nicer finished piece of prime rib. So I'm going to go throw this in the fridge and while it's sitting in the fridge, I can prepare my mirepoix. Here I have celery, carrots, onions, which is basically a mirepoix. Mirepoix is usually the flavor base for soups and stocks. I also have a little garlic, parsley, bay leaf, and thyme. We're going to add this to the base of our pan so that we can make a really nice jus sauce or a jus once our prime rib is cooked. A jus is basically just the juices that are seasoned and strained and served with a piece of meat. A gravy is usually the same thing, but it's thickened. So I'm not going to thicken it at all. Turn your oven on a 250 and preheat it. We're just going to basically throw everything in the pan. I have a half a bunch of parsley. I have some fresh thyme, a couple of bay leaves. I have some stalks of celery and I cut them really large because this is going to roast for a long time. And if it was really small, it would burn. Large celery will not burn. Same thing goes with my carrots and I'm just going to cut big chunks. Garlic heads, just cut them in half. Just cut them in half, skin it all. Again, this all gets strained out later on. And then onions, I leave the skin on. So that all goes into the pan. And now we're ready to put our roast on top of this. The pan I'm using is a nice roasting pan. It's got two really sturdy handles. It's got fairly high sides. It's built for roasting meat. The high sides allow us to have a little juice collection. It also holds some of the heat in the bottom of the pan. So this is really great for making gravies and jus at the end of roasting. So if you can't afford a roasting pan, you can always buy one of those aluminum pans at the store. The Premier has been in the fridge for about 24 hours. What I'm going to do is I'm going to take it out and let it sit at room temperature for about 30 to 60 minutes. And you don't want to go any longer than that. We just want to kind of bring it close to the room temperature before we throw it in the oven. Then we're going to get our piece of meat. I'm going to put it on top of my veg. You see how it sits nice and up and I'm just going to season it up a little more. And I know that there's salt on there already, but again, we want to get that nice salty crust. And I always start out with a little bit of oil. And basically what the oil does is that it's not really going to add fat. It's just going to let us get that salt and pepper stick. So I want to go again, generously with this, get it on the back of the piece of meat. Don't be afraid. We're going to use a fair amount of salt, a little pepper, right? We want to go get the pepper on there. And then I have some chopped garlic. I don't use a lot of chopped garlic, just a little. This is just going to help flavor that crust. And I'm just going to kind of pat that garlic in. I'm not going to go too crazy with it. Just put a little garlic in there. So we get a little like flavoring in our crust because at the end of the day, yes, I'm going to eat the meat, but this crust piece is probably like one of my favorite pieces. I want that to be flavored really well. So now that the roast is prepared, it's time to cook it. So the roast is ready to go into the oven and I'm going to do the reverse sear. I'm going to put it in the oven at about 250 degrees Fahrenheit for about three to three and a half hours, maybe four. And then I'm going to crank it up to 500 for about 10 to 15 minutes just to get that outside super crispy. The benefit of this technique is that you're going to get a nice rosy pink piece of steak and you're not going to have like that gray ring on the outside. A lot of times if you start high and then go low, you get a little bit of an overcooked gray ring on the inside of the meat. I want my finished roast to be medium rare medium. I don't really like my meat super rare. I feel like it kind of tastes a little rubbery. I like to rotate my pan halfway through the cooking, 180 degrees, just to make sure I get an even roast. We're going to let it go for a while until it's cooked most of the way through. And then we're going to crank it up and get it really brown and crispy on the outside. All right, that's been in for about three and a half hours. And you can see, we got a nice crust on top. It's nice and brown on the outside. I just want to pick it up and eat it right now. Like it's a big apple, but we have to let it rest. Resting lets the juices redistribute through the piece of meat. If we cut it right now, it's going to just juices everywhere. It's going to be a complete mess. I'm going to put it on a rack so that it doesn't sit in its own juices. It's raised from its juices. Any juices that run off from this, I can put into my jus. So I'm just going to get a fork underneath, try not to burn myself. And then I have a piece of foil that I'm just going to kind of tent over it lightly. I'm not going to wrap it tight, but I'm just going to try and keep some of that heat in there. We're just going to let that sit there, let it rest for about 25 to 30 minutes, and then we can make our jus in the pan. We got a lot of beef juice collected here. Our vegetables are really nicely roasted. They're going to be nice and sweet. We got some caramelization, and that's exactly what we want for our jus. I'm just going to add some beef broth or beef stock to it. And then we can throw this on the fire and let it cook. So I have my roasting pan on the stove. It has all my drippings. It has the beef stock and my veggies. And all I'm really going to do is let this come to a boil, get all the brown bits off of the bottom of the pan. And that's basically deglazing the pan that has all that nice caramelized juices from the steak. I'm going to let this cook for about three to five minutes. I'll strain it, and then we'll season it up. All right, this looks like it's about ready to strain. I'm going to shut it off. I like to strain into a pot because if I strain into a bowl or some other vessel, I have to put it in a pot to rewarm it. So why not strain directly into a pot? So I'm just going to strain it, get all the juice out. I don't mind the little fat. The fat is delicious. So a lot of people ask me, what do you do with the veggies afterwards? We've extracted the flavor. They're no longer of use to us. Just throw them in the compost bin. All I really have to do with my jus right now is season it up. I'm going to put some fresh cracked black pepper. I'm going to hit it with some salt, right? Season it up. We want this to be seasoned really well. I have a tasting spoon. I'm going to give it a taste. Delicious. It's meaty, it's brothy, and it's going to be a great accent to that nice slab of medium rare meat. The jus is good to go. It's time to serve up our prime rib. Our prime rib has rested for the prerequisite 30 minutes. I want you to see how beautiful this piece of meat is, right? It's nice and springy. It's got a nice crust on it. Brown on the outside, looking delicious. And all we really have to do now is slice this baby. I'm going to cut it right down the center. I like to stand it up so that I can see where the joints between the bones are. So I'm not hitting any bones, right? There we go. And you guys ready? Drum roll, please. Juicy, glistening, delicious. If we didn't let it rest right now, the cutting board would be full of juice. What I love about cutting boards like this is they have this groove on them to collect the juice, the juice groove or the blood groove. I think that this is beautifully cooked. I said I was going medium rare medium, and we're right there. Super juicy. It's still pink around the outside. There's no graying on the outside. This is the reverse here method. We get that nice pink all around. The fat pulled up a little, and normally people trim this off. But to me, this is like a crispy treat. It's got little pieces of meat in it. The fat is crispy and juicy. You can actually just put this on a little bit of bread, and it's just delicious. That's why I choose not to take it off. I can't wait to taste it. I'm going to do some really nice big hunks of meat here. So all the juices on the bottom of the platter are not blood. It is basically some water and myoglobin, which is a protein found in the meat. And it's just a naturally occurring thing when you slice into meat. It's delicious. Taste it. All right, here it is, my perfectly cooked plate of prime rib. We've taken all the time to get this right. Let's give it a taste. I'm going to put a little more jus on top. I have a little bit of horseradish sauce. I'm going to just put that on the edge of my plate. Let's get a piece of this beautiful piece of steak. I'm going to go from right here. Don't get too big of a bite. Just get it pure with the jus. It's tender. It's juicy. It's seasoned really well. The jus is a perfect compliment. What I love about this cook is that it's not too rare. A lot of times people cook this too rare and it's like really chewy. It's a perfect even cook. I'm really happy with the way this came out. The texture is beautiful. The flavor is amazing. I know that prime rib can be expensive and intimidating, but you follow these techniques. You pull this out of the oven and slice it and serve it to people. They are going to be impressed. This is a restaurant quality dish.