Prime Rib, Method X, with Parsnips and Brussels Sprouts

drool

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Oh. My. Look at that!

We're not really "beef roast" people, usually opting for steaks instead. At least, we've tried roasting hunks of beef and it never gave us the same satisfaction. Except, of course, for prime rib. We've roasted prime rib at home several times before, and they were always delicious, even if we didn't always cook them perfectly.

But, of course, for such a huge hunk of beef and at its expense (I can barely get myself to buy it!), I thought we should come up with a fool-proof prime rib technique.

Enter METHOD X.


Method X
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I was going through my blog reader a while back and saw a post from Chef John of Food Wishes Video Recipes titled Perfect Prime Rib of Beef with the Mysterious "Method X".

Needless to say, I was very intrigued.

(This was the same site from where I got the method for making Fried Green Tomatoes.)

So, what is Method X?

Method X is used for bone-in prime rib roasts that you want to cook to medium-rare. It works for any size. However, using boneless prime rib roasts has not been tested, nor has changing the doneness.

Bone-in.
Medium-rare.

Let's proceed.



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First thing, the prime rib roast must be brought to room temperature. 6 hours was the time allotted for this. However, we couldn't be home early enough for that, so I only had ours out on the counter for 2 hours or so (and hoped that it would be all right).

For seasoning, we simply did salt and pepper. Anything works.

Before putting the roast into the oven, I preheated the oven to 500F.

Next, some math. See, one really does need math out of school!

Take the weight of the hunk o' beef in pounds and multiply it by 5. Ours was 8 pounds, so the resulting number was 40.

This number is the number of minutes that the prime rib cooks for in the 500F oven. So, we put our prime rib roast into the oven and let it cook at 500F for 40 minutes.

Then, after that time is up, one turns off the oven and does not open the oven door for 2 hours.

DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR!

After the 2 hours, pull out your meat. I don't even know if it needs to rest because essentially, it's been "resting" all this time. But, I let ours rest for a bit.



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We wanted to keep the sides simple, so we roasted off some brussels sprouts and parsnips.

Oooh, parsnips!

I've been a fan of parsnips ever since we bought them that very first time and roasted them alongside (or underneath, I should say) chicken and olives. They were so good, slightly sweet like that, with a hint of banana. I've been nagging JS to buy more parsnips... actually, to include them in our rotation of vegetables. But apparently, she says that they're actually "expensive" when compared to other vegetables. Oh well. [sigh]

Back to the beef.



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As you can see, the prime rib had a very nice crust. How about the interior? Well, as I was slicing the prime rib, I couldn't help but exclaim out loud with EACH slice: "Ooooh! Wow! It's soooooo juicy!"

Exclaim out loud.

With each slice.

We're Method X believers now. Of course, we would have to think of sides that don't need the oven. (Being us, though, we have no problems just having prime rib with rice.)


The video by Chef John of Food Wishes Video Recipes:
Perfect Prime Rib of Beef with the Mysterious "Method X"