I have a follow-up question to gigiaxline's question about prime rib. Despite many people disagreeing with me when I talk about steak, our favorite cut of meat is a filet. It is tender, has great flavor, and we are usually always successful at getting it to turn out beautifully on the rare side of medium-rare. My memories of good prime rib are the same. However, in recent years, when we have made prime rib, we have always ended up disappointed. I am attaching a link to a discussion on eGullet that I started a number of years ago. One thing for sure, people do feel strongly about this topic.
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?/topic/110938-prime-rib/page__p__1508336__hl__prime+rib__fromsearch__1#entry1508336
I am wondering if I just have a poor memory. I have been told that one problem may be the fact that a two-rib prime rib roast is more difficult to get right, that larger roasts are recommended. Can prime rib turn out with the same tender, beautiful medium rareness as a filet? Or... should I just stick to filets? Thanks!
9 Comments
There are four grades of beef. Most of us are only able to purchase "choice" (good) or "select" (don't even think about it), and ungraded beef, which is most often used for "by-products," which means it's so chewy and tough, the only way to eat it is to grind it into a paste.
Only 2% of the beef in this country is graded "prime," and almost all of it goes to restaurants such as Peter Luger's in New York or Daniel's Broiler in Seattle or to Omaha Steaks for mail orders or is exported. Even if we have a brother who's a butcher, it's really, really hard and very, very expensive to get our hands on a prime rib roast. If I had known this 40 years ago, I would have encouraged at least one of my sons to take up the profession of ranching.
What most of us will be roasting on Christmas day is a plain old rib roast.
But, yesterday there was a great article posted by Bettereine that suggested to do this in reverse order.