Cooking For Engineers

Guest · Posted: Sat Jul 01, 2006 11:37 pm Post subject:

For everyone talking about the time to cook, I think only one person got it right, buy an independant thermometer. You oven can be off by as much as 30 degrees. This can make a huge difference in cooking time. Also I do mine a little backwards 200 until roast is @110 then crank it up to 500 to put a nice crust on it (about 10 minutes & use your eyes if it looks cruty enough it is) then pull out and let stand at least 30 minutes. This will make a rare roast, with a very crusty outside.

Traverser · Guest

Wowza!

I'm an engineer and always looking for the "right" way to do things...so this site is very helpful. Last night I did a 3-rib (6-lb) roast on a VT Castings BBQ grill - my first cooking on it! It was for a guests 60th birthday, so I was a bit nervous, but went for it anyway. After letting the roast come to room temp and tying it up, I rubbed-on some olive oil and seared the roast over direct flame for 3-minutes on each side. Then I rubbed it with coarse sea salt, fresh ground pepper and a little paprika. I placed the roast on a rack in a pan over the center of the grill (no cover on the roasting pan of course), shut off the two center burners and left the two outer burners on their lowest settings. An oven thermometer placed on the "floor" of the rack inside the roasting pan measured 200F, and the thermometer on the exterior of the grill hood measured 350F. Now, mind you, the grill thermometer is up high near the end of the hood so it was measuring directly over a burner. At any rate, the meat was done to 130F in exaclty 2.5 hours. At that point I opened the grill lid, placed the cover on the roast pan and let it sit for 30-minutes.

I carved the roast by slicing the ribs off the back, and then sliced nice "typical" rib cuts to serve. OUTSTANDING! I was a little worried because the roast cooked faster than this site suggests, but except for the outer 1/8-inch around, EVERY BIT of the roast was perfectly medium rare. The guests went nuts. My wife loved it, and my two young children couldn't get enough.

Tonight I basted the ribs up with BBQ sauce and grilled them for about 7-minutes on each side. They were super-yummy, although next time 'round I'll cook them a little longer - I like my ribs done more than I do my prime rib.

Guest · Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:47 pm Post subject:

Hi. Recently ate at Sanfords Pub and Grub in Spearfish S.D.They make the best prime rib that I've had in a restaurant. I ordered the prime rib rare. I happened to have a view of the kitchen, over a counter,and watched as the chef took what appeared to be an already cooked cold roast,cut off a thick piece and that was all I could see. My meal came and the prime rib was as I had ordered it. Any ideas as to how it was heated back up?

Michael Chu · Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)

Guest · Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 10:10 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the reply Michael. After reading your original post on how to cook prime rib, I can't wait to try it.Thinking of maybe giving it a try this weekend. Wondering if you have ever tried to barbecue prime rib and if so. how would you do it. I have heard of using a drip pan with some water or cooking wine,etc in it ,and placing the pan on top of the coals. Then the roast is placed on top of the grid and slowly cooked.Ken

gabe · Guest

We go out for a delicious prime rib. I think it is boiled. Is that possible? Is there a recipe available for boiled prime rib. I visited your site today for the first time looking for such a recipe. Would love to try it at home.

Guest · Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:40 pm Post subject:

I happened in to this great website while searching for a coherent clam chowder recipe. I love it. I cook prime rib very often and use a modification of the sear and slow roast technique that seems to greatly enhance the natural juice retention of the meat. I place the roast on a roasting rack so the bone side is above the roasting pan surface. I preheat the oven to 450 F and then place the pan in the middle. When I first hear a sizzling sound, about 6-10 minutes I reduce the heat to 200 F. I personally use a convection oven but this is not necessary. Here is where I vary from what has been suggested. Using an instant read thermometer rather than one placed in the roast, I start monitoring the center temp of the roast after it has been in the oven about 18-20 minutes per pound. When the central temperature reaches 118-120 F I remove the roast and wrap it in aluminum foil and place it on a plate in a non energized microwave (serves only as a wll insulated space), or a good cooler that is obviously without ice. In about 30 minutes, the roast will be uniformly on the rare side of medium rare. With a good quality true prime rib this is perfect for many but you can wait to remove the roast until the central temp is 122-124 F for a slightly less rare result. Removing the roast from heat early and letting the cooking process continue virtually eliminates the loss of juices (get some good stock for your gravy) and yields an incredibly uniform result.
Give it a try
Dr. J

matt_simerson · Guest

There are a lot of comments here from folks that just don't seem to understand engineers. Without further noise:

Source: Whole Foods
Cost: $62
Size: 7lbs (3 ribs, cut from the loin end, which the butcher was happy to do)

Preparation: wrap in towel, place in fridge for 3 days
Day of consumption:

Browning and cooking were done in a 10" Cast Iron Dutch Oven in which the roast barely fit. After browning, I inserted a heavy foil pie pan, inverted and cut to fit, with hole punched in it so the juices could drain. Browning rendered a fair bit of fat.

Temperatures were measured using the oven thermometer (+10/-1°), a calibrated over thermometer (+/- 1°), and a Maverick remote probe thermometer (+/- 2°, tested with ice & boiling water) inserted between two of the ribs, with the end of the probe centered in the roast.

After going back in the oven for 1/2 hour and raising the temp to 138°, we had perfect deep pink prime rib, all the way through. I just finished warming up a piece in a ziplock, in hot water, like Michael recommends. Excellent.

Robyn · Guest

Hi Michael;
I just now happened upon your Cooking For Engineers site. I am so glad you created this for us analytical minded people. I am about to prepare a standing rib roast for Thanksgiving for some friends. I have a handwritten (by me) recipe from my father who was a cook in the army in WWII. He loved to cook and continued in that industry all his career after the war. He died several years ago and this is the first time I am attempting this recipe without him here to call on the phone for walk-through advise.
My notes on how to cook the standing prime rib are jumbled - out of character for an analytical mind. But it is because I had to take notes as he talked. He spoke like an artist but he had analytical spurts. I am also a map (visual) person, so you can see why the notes are a mish mash of analytical-visual-artistic learning/communicating styles. Because of this I had to check out the web for help to interpret my own notes. And miraculously there's your website - waiting just for me. I love it! Your link is now saved to my desktop! I am now able to rearrange my notes and answer my question marks (200 degrees or not) (Kosher salt before or after searing) etc. Thank you for this website!
Robyn
from Florida

Guest · Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:45 am Post subject: real engineers use metric???

Mr. Chu,

your reponse is perfect. Lazy engineers complain about conversion when dealing w/ international "algorithms or recipes". Lucky for me, i'm a lazy engineer, that happens to use the same units as you do. (SWEET). Great recipe. I agree whole heartidly, all ya need for a good cut of meat is salt, pepper and and a low temperature.

Guest · Guest

I'd like to try this method and was wondering if i use a cut of meat that does not have bones attached will my cooking time still be 40-45 minutes per pound? (I hope to find an 8lb roast)
Thank you!

Guest

For the last few years I have been attempting to recapture the flavor of the standing rib roast my grandmother cooked in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She grew up on a farm in Wyoming and raised three kids on a farm in Nebraska through the Depression. A stroke ended her speech when I was too young to have extracted her recipes from her head, because she never wrote anything down. I have solved the corn pudding recipe (just Google "Memphis Corn Pudding") but have yet to have cracked the rib roast or the dinner rolls.

Anyway, in addition to Michael's searing-and-200 method (with the searing coming either through a skillet or a 500-degree oven), I have found two other methods that have produced interesting results (still not Grandma's though):

Wannabe food scientist Alton Brown reverses the searing-and-200 method with a long, slow cook, a rest and then a quick 500-degree flash at the end: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_17372,00.html Without the terracota pot I tried this to OK results; maybe you really need the pot.

Ina Gartner (Barefoot Contessa) is a 350-degree gal, though she varies that a bit as well: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_25276,00.html. I found the meat less tender than in the sear-and-slow method.

The aforementioned James Beard also proposes that a three- or four-rib roast can be cooked thusly: For a 7:30 p.m. dinner, do the normal seasoning and place the roast in a 375-degree oven at 11:30 a.m.; shut off the oven (but leave the roast inside) at 12:30 p.m. At 6 p.m., turn the oven again at 375 for another hour, pull the roast out and let it rest for 30 minutes. I've never tried this one.

I've given up on both analog and digital quick-read thermometers and am ordering a Poulder today, with the understanding that the Poulter probe wires eventually burn out. A new wire and probe costs $15, while the whole shebang costs $10. You've got to love American consumer society.

Thanks.

\dmc

michael · Guest

Help. I am picking up a full standing (ribs in) prime rib that my butchers says will weigh in at about 22lbs. Based on everything I have read through this great forum, are my calculations correct in assuming it will take almost 10 hours at 200 degrees F? Could I achieve the same slow cook effect by turning my heat up to-say 225 degrees to shave off a few minutes (hours) of cooking time? Thanks in advance, Michael

Crash · Joined: 17 Dec 2006 Posts: 2

azmomof5 · Guest

Expecting to feed 18 adults for Christmas dinner. What size Rib roast should I buy?