The World Table

An interactive culinary compendium: recipes, lexicon and study

Wyoming · Main

Wyoming Prime Rib

  • Intermediate
  • 4 h
  • roughly 3 of 4 for cost

rich · aromatic · herb-fresh · warm-spiced Leads with richness that coats and comforts, aromatics blooming from the first bite, fading in warm spice.

Ingredients

  • 4kg standing rib roast
  • 4 tbsp coarse salt
  • 2 tbsp coarse black pepper
  • 6 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3 tbsp rosemary and thyme, chopped
  • 3 tbsp oil
  • For the jus: pan drippings, 250ml red wine, 500ml beef stock
  • Horseradish cream to serve

Equipment

Thermometer

The skills inside

Deglazing & pan saucesRoasting in a hot ovenResting meat & slicing against the grain

Allergen screen

Found: dairy · alcohol

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

  1. Rub the roast all over with salt, pepper, garlic, herbs, and oil and rest it uncovered in the fridge overnight.
  2. Bring to room temperature, then roast at 230C for 20 min to build a crust. 20 min
  3. Drop to 120C and roast slowly to an internal 52C for medium-rare, about 2.5 hours. Use a thermometer, not a clock. 300 min
  4. Rest 30 min under foil: this is not optional on a roast this size. 30 min
  5. Deglaze the pan with wine, add stock, reduce, and serve the jus with horseradish cream.

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Deglazing & pan sauces 49 recipes

  • The pan still holds its fond. Nothing has been rinsed, wiped, or soaked, and the browned layer is intact on the floor.
  • Excess fat was poured off first and the browned layer left behind; the fat is not the flavour and a sauce carrying all of it will not come together.
  • The liquid went into a still-hot pan and the floor came clean: scraped while it bubbles, the base goes from stuck brown to bare metal and the sauce darkens as it takes it up.
  • The fond was brown and not black. A burnt floor dissolves into bitterness that cannot be seasoned out, and is better washed away than deglazed.
  • Reduced first and seasoned afterwards, tasted at the consistency it will be served at rather than at the start.

Where it goes wrong The pan was left to stand and go cold before anybody came back to it. Cold fond will not dissolve, so the scraping lifts nothing, and the sauce arrives thin and pale with the flavour it was supposed to carry still welded to the metal.

Roasting in a hot oven 56 recipes

  • The oven was fully up to heat before anything went in, given time beyond the indicator light rather than judged by it.
  • Every piece has air around it. Nothing touches its neighbour and nothing is packed to the edge of the tray, because crowded food steams itself in its own moisture and never browns.
  • Colour is even across the whole tray, the tray having been turned at least once: no pale row at the back and no dark row at the front.
  • It came out BEFORE the target temperature, not at it. Carryover keeps driving the inside up by several degrees after it leaves the oven, and that rise is part of the cooking rather than an error in it.
  • The temperature was read at the coldest part rather than the easiest one to reach, and read again after the rest.

Where it goes wrong The tray was crowded, or the oven was not truly up to heat. The food releases steam faster than a cool box can carry it away, so it sits pale and slack, and the extra minutes spent chasing colour take the inside well past where it should have stopped.

At the Table

The Pour
Syrah (northern Rhône) or Nebbiolo
Also Right
The braising wine itself, better bottle
From the Taps
Belgian dubbel
Zero-Proof
Beet & blackcurrant shrub

Long-cooked beef trades bite for depth: savory, structured reds echo the pot; and pouring the braise’s own region is law.

Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.

Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Wyoming Prime Rib Technique: Deglazing & pan saucesThe skill inside this recipe Search YouTube: J. Kenji López-Alt on Wyoming Prime Rib A YouTube search for J. Kenji López-Alt and this dish. No affiliation.