Prime Rib with Herb Butter Rub

This post is two Christmas dinners in the making. For years, we had a "seafood" Christmas dinner. Lobster, shrimp and all the other good stuff you'd expect to eat with it. Last year, we wanted to try our hand at a prime rib. The first year was decent. Everyone liked the taste and was very happy with it. If you're a rare meat eater like myself, it was okay. Not great, but decent. The internal temp was over 135 degrees so it wasn't quite as rare in the center as I would have preferred. This year I made a few adjustments and it was much better.

Christmas 2017 I made an herb butter rub to slather all over the prime rib. Christmas 2018 I found Traeger Prime Rib Rub and saved myself some time. I liked the garlic in the home-made version better. But several of the kids, who normally don't have a comment about much of anything, loved the taste of the crust on the outside of this year's prime rib.

Prime Rib Christmas 2017 

 

Mix around ten heaping teaspoons of minced garlic into two softened sticks of butter.

 Chop up a handful of rosemary and thyme. (About two tablespoons each)

 Mix in spices along with two tablespoons of salt and one tablespoon of pepper.

Now here is the not so fun part. Slather the butter all over the rib roast. Now, I don't know what trick photography is used to make it smooth and pretty on fancy food blogs, but this blog is all about reality. No matter how "softened" you get it, it's like trying to catch a greased pig. What you see above it as good as I could make it. 

DIRECTIONS: 

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. 

Slather a ROOM TEMPERATURE rib roast (we use a whole ribeye) with herb butter and place in a pan with a rack. (fat side on top)

Bake it for 5 minutes for each pound at 500 degrees. (10 lb. rib roast bake for 50 minutes.)

Turn off the oven and let it sit inside the oven for two hours. Don't open the door!

Remove from oven and slice it to your desired thickness.

Make a gravy from the juices. Add the pan drippings to a saucepan. Whisk in 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. When you have no lumps, slowly stir in 2 cups of beef stock until it's blended and thickens.

The internal temp was about 137 degrees when I removed it from the oven. 

Christmas 2018

I had a few tweaks for round two and was well satisfied with the results. Applying the butter was still a pain. I opted for a prime rib rub which I found at a sporting goods store. The flavor was excellent.

After looking at last year's pics, I realized I had the fat at the bottom. This year I moved changed that to the top. Secondly, I didn't completely preheat the oven. I turned the oven on as I started to slather the butter and seasonings and put the pan in the oven. The ribeye weighed in at ten pounds. I set my timer for 50 minutes.

When 50 minutes was up, I turned off the oven. I opened the door to take a picture. (I know, don't do this at home!) I set my oven timer for two hours and let it set. I removed it immediately and didn't tent it with foil like I did last year. There was still a lot more baking to do so we did not slice it until another hour and a half passed. The center pieces were more to my liking. It was very moist and tender.

This was served with boiled shrimp, cedar plank grilled, fresh caught, Alaskan Silver salmon, roasted sweet and Idaho potatoes, roasted green beans and garlic bread. I also had a platter of sliced marbled, cheddar and blueberry cheeses, summer sausage, pepperoni and olives served with an assortment of  crackers. Amanda fixed absolutely delicious gluten-free lemon bars, Blair brought equally mouth-watering buttermilk pie and red velvet cake.

Merry Christmas from the Grishams!