Standing Rib Roast 925

I use the old Cooks Illustrated method and it works great. My copy says 11-95 so we've been doing it this way quite a while.

They say for 6-8 people get a 3 rib (7 lb) roast. We've found that a rib per two people is fine. We're having 20 this year so, yikes, it's a lot of meat for us.

To add to your confusion they call the prime part the "first cut" or "loin end" or "small end" depending upon your butcher. Another way to phrase it is "the first three or four ribs from the loin end". It's ribs 10-12 and is made of one large single muscle and has less fat. Ribs 6-9 ("second cut") still rates high with them. They say as you get to the chuck end you get more muscled pieces and more fat.

Now that that's as clear as mud...here's how we cook it:

Season the roast and let it sit a room temperature for a couple of hours.

Heat oven to 200 degrees.

Place roasting pan on stove over medium-high heat. Sear the meat until it is nicely browned and some fat has rendered out.

Remove roast from pan. Place rack in pan and the roast on top of the rack.

Put the roast in the oven and cook until meat is at desired temp. 130 degrees (medium rare) takes about 3 1-2 hours or about 30 minutes per pound. Let the meat stand 20 minutes before carving. Honestly, we plan more like 35 minutes a pound. Pink all the way through, but not bloody red. The medium-well done pair gets either end.

We do carve the ribs off and then slice the roast. If you had your butcher do that first and then tie them on for cooking it would make carving that much easier.

The ribs are wonderful leftovers the next day baked-reheated with your favorite bbq sauce. Consider it a treat for the chef.

I usually season the meat with a combo of crushed garlic, chopped rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper. Purists prefer simply salt and pepper. And yes, you can make a lovely pan sauce out of the drippings while the roast sits before carving.

hope this helps, marcella