prime rib with oven roasted vegetables

Being elected to cook Easter dinner could have been good or bad. I hadn't really pondered a dish to prepare and I wasn't expecting to really 'celebrate' anyways. So with step one out of the way, I left the main ingredient up to my father after I filled his mind with a few quick thoughts I had - typical ham or turkey meal, braised lamb shanks, short ribs, ciccopino, and prime rib. Not knowing of his recent encounter with a bad prime rib meal, he jumped on the chance to have one done up by me. To complement the dish I decided to pick up a rutabaga, carrots, beets, baby potatoes and parsnips to roast.

Wanting to get a good piece of meat I headed over to Sunterra Market. I requested a 3 rib roast and had the butcher slice the bones almost completely off before tying it together. This I had read, would allow me to still use the bones as a rack and make the final serving a lot cleaner. While getting the meat prepped, it was a quick slide over to the vegetables and retrieve what I needed. My surprise of the day came at the till. Not only are the vegetables a heck of a lot more expensive than my regular pick ups at H&W, but the prime rib rang up at $60. Woowzer..better not mess this up.

Prep was relatively easy, as the roast simply required a few hours on the counter to come up to room temperature. I discovered through my pre-meal research that a lot of bad results stemmed from a lack of this first step. Once it was ready, the oven was set to 450 and the two cut sides were rubbed with a couple of tablespoons of butter. In it went for 15 minutes, for a quick sear, and then I lowered the oven to 325. I let it cook away, basting the sides every 30 minutes, until the internal temperature was 118 degrees (rare). At this point I pulled the roast and let it rest under tinfoil for 20 minutes. I measured it after it's rest and it was perfectly (127 degrees) done to medium rare.

The vegetables were straight forward. I cut up everything but the carrots into relative chunks and mixed in some olive oil, salt & pepper, and basil. I let it hang out with the prime rib for the last 40 minutes before cranking the oven to 400 degrees for the 20 minute rest period.

All in all the meal was great. We started with a nice chunk of fontina with crackers while enjoying my new favorite malbec. Once everything was ready, I sliced up a crusty loaf of bread and we dined on an absolutely amazing prime rib. I couldn't stop myself from two helpings of both the meat and vegetables. With the ease of preparation and simple cooking methods, I can't help but think the only thing that should stop you from making this is the price.


Up next..dessert.