Chef it up, yo!

So we decided to kick the turkey to the curb this year and try out an amazing piece of meat called the “Standing Rib Roast”…sounds majestic doesn’t it? Well it is nicknamed the “king of roasts” - all hail the Standing Rib Roast recipe!

Step 1: Order the cut of meat from your local butcher ahead of time. I have heard not to try and cook anything under like 5 or 6 pounds because it just won’t come out as well as a larger cut of meat would. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t really willing to test out the theory so we went ahead and ordered a 6 - 7 pound Angus standing rib roast. Oh, and make sure to say you want it “cradled” the butcher will know what you mean…sounds cuddly and cute doesn’t it? Eh hem.

Step 2: On the day you are planning on cooking the roast…take the meat out of the refrigerator and let it hang out on the counter for 2 hours. You want it to come up to room temperature, or else your cooking times are gonna be all jacked up.

Okay, now comes the fun stuff - prep time!

• Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F
• Make up your herb paste for the outside of the roast:
  • I used about 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil mixed with about the equivalent of 3/4 of a cup of fresh herbs (I used sage, rosemary and parsley), a tablespoon (or more if you want to) of garlic powder, about 2 tablespoons of kosher salt and a generous eyeball amount of freshly ground black pepper. Mix well and spread it all over the meat…top, bottom, sides…everywhere!



• Now place your herb pasted roast into a roasting pan on a rack…bones down fat up (kinda like hoes down g’s up) and cook it up for 25 minutes. Seriously, you need to time it because you will forget. Warning: Avoid all temptation to open the oven door while the roast is cooking…just don’t do it. Seriously, don’t.
• When your 25 minutes is up, turn the oven down to 325 degrees F and roast for about 2 hours, until an instant-read thermometer registers like 125 or 130 (for rare - med rare). I used a standard meat thermometer that goes in the roast and stays there until its done, hey whatever works! Remember: this roast will need to stand for at least 20 minutes after it comes out of the oven which means the internal temperature is going to increase. This puppy will still be cooking after it comes out of that oven, so keep that in mind when deciding what temperature to take it out of the oven at! Kitchen fact: Meat temperature will rise 5 to 10 degrees after it is removed from the oven and the juices redistribute.
• Transfer the little beauty to a cutting board/carving board, cover with foil and let the R & R begin (for the meat that is). I let our roast sit for about 30 minutes and it came out a perfect “Franz/William Tell” medium-rare.

Here is the sauce that I made up to serve with it. Tip: Make it up a few hours ahead of time to let the flavors come together.

Creamy Dijon Horseradish Sauce:

• 1 1/2 cups of mayonnaise
• 3 tablespoons dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of whole grain mustard
• 2 tablespoons of prepared horseradish - (I dig horseradish, so go less if you don’t appreciate a good zing)
• 1/3 cup of sour cream
• 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt

Whisk all ingredients together in a small bowl.

(click on images to enlarge)

Other fixins we had: roasted garlic mashed potatoes, the infamous green bean casserole (can’t live without it) and an old family recipe of pearl onions in cream sauce. Stay tuned for more recipes…

Download or print recipes here:

Standing Rib Roast Recipe (PDF 24.3 kb)

Dijon Horseradish Sauce Recipe (PDF 17.7 kb)

This entry was posted on Friday, November 24th, 2006 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Beef, Holidays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.