the Perfect Prime Rib

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It's been a few days since Christmas, and for all that time, Terry has been sick with a cold and a really bad cough. I've been with him playing nursemaid, and taking care of regular business (food, meds, cleaning).

Consequently, I haven't been posting, but I wanted to talk a bit about our Christmas dinner.

As I mentioned before, we planned on having a prime rib (a beautiful choice cut of meat we got at Costco). I haven't cooked a prime rib for probably fifteen years. The last time, I packed it in rock salt and cooked it in the oven. While that came out beautifully, it was really messy, resulting in a lot of hardened rock salt. And I lost all the juicy run off, because it was all too salty.

Knowing I was really unclear as to how to cook a very expensive prime rib, like always, I went to the internet. There, I found about a million different recipes for marinades, rubs, and sauces, not to mention different ways and times to cook this piece of meat.

After spending hours looking through all of them, I finally decided on the one that looked the easiest, and am I ever glad I did!

This method says you can use whatever rub or marinade you like (I like kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, some dry mustard, a bit of oregano, garlic and onion powder). The day before you'll be cooking, you rub the meat with olive oil (or butter, your choice) and then push the rub well into all parts of the meat. Then wrap the meat in saran wrap or a tight plastic bag (we use a vacuum sealer) and let it sit overnight so the rub has a chance to do it's job.

This next part is really important . . .

On the day you'll be cooking, take the meat out of the fridge at least two hours before you intend to cook. Longer would be all right, as you want the meat to be at room temperature before putting it in the oven.

Next you want to set your oven for 500 degrees, It's really important that the oven has a chance to preheat up to this temperature. Now you want to multiply the weight of your meat by 5. My meat was four and one quarter pounds, so my time was twenty one minutes and fifteen seconds.

Now place the meat in a pan that is at least as high as the roast, and has no more than two inches around the edges. Otherwise your drippings will spread out and probably burn, leaving you with no ingredients for your au jus.

When the oven is up to heat, you put the meat in for the prescribed amount of time. When the timer goes off, turn your oven off and leave the meat in the oven for two hours. DO NOT open the door during that two hours.

When the two hours is up, you'll open your oven to a perfect prime rib, brown and crunchy on the outside and a exactly medium rare on the inside.

Could this be an easier? A note for all you RVers, we cooked this in the motorhome, it worked perfectly in the oven, so you can do this no matter where you're camping.

Obviously, this was too much for us to eat at one sitting, so we vacuum sealed it up for a later meal.

Which was today. But then we couldn't decide how to reheat it without turning it into a hard mass of gray shoe leather. Again, the internet to the rescue.

For a perfect reheat, we kept the meat in it's sealed bag (or you could use a regular plastic bag, just squeeze all the air out and seal it really well). Then you let your tap water run hot (about 140 degrees, NOT boiling). Then you simply put the bagged meat in a large bowl and cover it with the hot water (you may need to put a weight on it to keep the meat stays submerged). Check the water temperature after fifteen minutes, and add more hot water if needed. You'll want to leave the meat submerged for about thirty minutes. Then, when you open up you bag, your meat will be warm through (not hot, but a little au jus will help with that).

And surprise! Your leftover prime rib will be just as soft and tender as when you originally served it, and the meat will taste as fresh as it did the first day.

Hope you're all enjoying the holidays.