Outdoor Gourmet: The Christmas Prime Rib

So, I just stirred from my Christmas food coma. My family had our traditional Christmas celebration, which entails making and eating a bunch of food and playing Balderdash. It’s festive and delicious.

Dad, along with being beloved patron of the house (and the winner of yet another round of Balderdash), holds the honorary title of Grand Master Planker. This holiday season, he took planking to a place we have never taken it before-

The Christmas Prime Rib

This entry isn’t so much a guest blog or a recipe- more a holiday narrative on the finer points of planking the big stuff.

Ingredients

Cedar Baking Plank- 13/16” thick, soaked overnight.

10 lb. Prime Rib with nice marbling

“A lot of Garlic.” At least a bulb- cloves whole and crushed.

Kosher Salt and fresh cracked Pepper.

The Narrative...

“This was no ordinary plank. This was one of those big, thick, baking planks we made to play around with in the oven. I soaked three of them overnight, just in case we needed to switch them out, because this thing was going to take a while. “

The cut of meat in question was a bone-in, Rib Eye 10 pounder. Just a beautiful cut of meat!

“I rubbed the roast with salt and pepper, then stuffed whole garlic cloves between the fat seam and the meat. If I would have had fresh rosemary, I would've used that too, but there wasn't any around.

Then I heated up the grill and put the plank on there for three, maybe four minutes on one side at 350°, then flipped it. This helps it not cup, even though cedar isn’t as bad about cupping as the hardwoods- it’s more dimensionally stable.

The roast went on the plank and this was the tricky part- the sear. I got the grill up to 550°, then put the back two rows (on a propane grill) of flames down to the lowest flame possible- if I had it to do over again, I would have turned them off- while the front was still on medium-high. By the end of my 30 minute sear period, my plank was on fire. This actually seared the roast very nicely and helped the overall color, but if I wouldn’t have been on it with a squirt bottle, we would have had problems. When you are cooking something that throws a lot of grease combined with high temps, you better be patrolling it, ‘cause your gonna catch fire.

Anyway, I kept it at 220°-240° for the rest of the cooking time. I even had a little trouble keepin’ it that low. When you’re cooking low and slow, you only need to check it once every 30 minutes or so, but for that first half hour- Whoo! I can’t say it enough, you better be hanging out around the grill with H2O close at hand.

This prime rib took 4.5 hours, which comes out to be 27 minutes per pound for Medium Rare, even with the sear time. In round numbers, plan around 30 minutes per pound, or if you are a medium-well, well done-type of person, allow more time.

Pulled it at 125°, then it rested covered with foil for 15 minutes. Didn't want to dry it out. With prime rib, it’s ok to buy a big roast. When it comes to left overs, you can’t beat prime rib. “

While Dad manned the grill, family and guests alike were put to work chopping and prepping. I took charge of the mulled wine, which needed many, many tests to get just right.