Showing posts with label Gravy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gravy. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Prime Rib and Creamy Onion Gravy


Every year I make a prime rib dinner on the years that this meal is at my house.  Some years we have gone to family or friends and we enjoy turkey or ham dinners.  We love all three but the Prime Rib is different and so I think my family likes the change.  We have turkey for Thanksgiving, Prime Rib for Christmas and Ham for New Year's Day…this way no one gets left out and we don't get too tired of one thing.

This year I experimented with two new recipes.  Thanks to the suggestions of a friend, I aged my prime rib.  I was a bit scared because I had spent a hefty price on this piece of meat and I did not want to see it ruined.  I studied lots of recipes and suggestions and took from each of the best parts and did my own thing.

These are the steps that I took to prepare, age and roast my prime rib.

1.  I wrapped the prime rib in cheesecloth and bought enough to change the wrapping once in a 9 day period.

2.  I found a cookie sheet with a drip rack that I could place in my fridge to collecting any drippings from the prime rib.

3.  I let the prime rib sit for 24 hours undisturbed and checked on the wrapping of cheesecloth. I changed it this one time.

4.  I used our refrigerator downstairs that has very little use.  This allowed the temperature in the fridge to stay constant.  I did not return to check on the meat until Saturday.

5.  On Sunday, I removed the roast from the fridge, unwrapped the meat, carved off the hard exterior meat and fat, cut the meat out of the bones (see picture above) and trimmed some of the fat. I added salt, pepper, and some fresh thyme.

6.  I preheated my oven to 450 degrees.  Let the roast cook inside for 30 minutes.

7. Lowered the temperature of the oven to 325, inserted my thermometer and set the timer for 1 hour.  The time to cook your prime rib will vary based on its size.  A rough estimate is 15-18 minutes per pound.

8.  Once my roast reached 130 degrees, I removed it to the counter, tented it with foil and let it sit for 35 minutes while I finished the other dinner items.

The meat was tender and very flavorful.  I will definitely be doing this again with the other cuts of red meat that I get from the butcher.

There are other resources for the aging process for a prime rib in the refrigerator.  I will list a few here so that you can understand the process and this may answer any questions I did not cover in the above instructions.

Guy Fieri has this one  HERE from the Food Network.

Fine Cooking as this one HERE with some reasons as to why aged is better.

This is a great link to all things prime rib with excellent pictures, go HERE.



Recipe:  Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Garlic

1 large bag of brussel sprouts or a stalk (they sell them like this in my grocery store)
1/4 cup of EVOO
1 T. minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste
7 pieces of crispy bacon.

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Toss the sprouts, EVOO, garlic, salt and pepper.  Bake the sprouts for 20-25 minutes until charred.  Do not over cook or they will be mushy and most people do not like them this way.  They should be like biting a nectarine…not hard like an apple and not soft like an overripe peach.

Remove from oven and mix with bacon pieces.  Serve immediately.


French Fries were not on the menu.  But things change.  I got a really cool device that takes a fresh potato and cuts it into french fries.  My son loves sweet potato fries and regular fries so he thought this tool would come in handy. It has!  LOVE IT!  I used to eat french fries in Texas with brown gravy and thought why not do this instead of a roasted potato.  I cut the potatoes and fried them in oil for 10 minutes.  I let them drain on a piece of brown paper bag, salted and peppered them and wallah…easy peasy.





 Yorkshire Puddings are something that my family absolutely would duel over, if we still practiced such a thing…LOl  I can never make too many.  Especially when served with gravy.  YUM
I used this recipe from About.com British & Irish Food, it was submitted by Elaine Lemm.  The directions and ingredient list can be found here.







 Recipe:  Creamy Beef Onion Gravy


Trimmings from the aged prime rib, I used about 1 cup full, very  little fat
4 cups of water
1/2 cup of chopped carrot
1/4 cup of chopped celery
1 small onion, cut into pieces
1 tsp. of beef flavoring (boullion, paste, etc…)
3 T. flour
1 cup of cream

I placed the first 6 ingredients in a medium size pot.  Brought to a boil, then let simmer for about 3 hours.  The broth reduced to about 2.5 cups and was a very rich brown.  In a small bowl I mixed the flour and cream together and added it to the broth.  I slowly brought it back to a boil and then turned off the heat.  We like our gravy runny…if you want it thicker you can always add more flour and cream and repeat the process to thicken your gravy.  (see picture below for gravy)


So there it is…our Christmas dinner and Prime Rib Feast.  We ate like kings, remembered our English and Scottish roots, celebrated with family and had the best day ever.

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