The standard protocol for cooking big slabs of meat has always been to sear first, and then slow everything down in the oven to finish cooking through. This genius method will do precisely the opposite, and will give you juicier, more evenly-cooked meat with almost no possibility of failure. And it can be out of the oven up to two hours before dinnertime.
This technique, called reverse-searing, is so much more relaxed — and has so many other perks — it makes me wonder why we've always done it the other way. Because of the rumor that searing seals in the juices? (Denied.) Because we get anxious when we see un-browned meat, to the point we compulsively apply Maillard reactions? Or because we assume that this order protects us from overcooking, if we're not adding a sear on top of something that's already, ostensibly, done?
Luckily we have Lynne Curry, the author of grassfed beef cookbook and manifesto "Pure Beef," to show us how much better we could have it. This recipe first appeared in the December issue of Fine Cooking magazine in an article called "Sear Genius" (online, "A Genius Method for Cooking a Holiday Roast") — it's almost like they were daring me not to cover it. (By the way, if you are the kind of person who is dedicated to always becoming a smarter cook, you should be subscribing to Fine Cooking.)
Here's how it works: You roast it slowly until it gets within throwing distance of your desired doneness (about 15 degrees below). Then, with full USDA approval, your almost-done roast can sit for up to two hours while you use the oven for baked potatoes and kale gratins and chocolate cakes. Only just before serving, you sear it — at full blast in the oven, or on the stovetop, or even on the grill — for a crisp, handsome crust over rosy, juicy meat, edge to edge. No resting necessary.
How does this method make for such even cooking? The answer is twofold: First off, slow cooking gives the whole thing more time to come up to temperature gently, without overcooking the exterior. But moreover, since the surface is already warm, you can brown it for less time and still get the same caramelization — which means you won’t end up cooking the meat below the surface to well-done in the process.
Over on Fine Cooking, Curry offers recipes for three different cuts — top loin roast, beef tenderloin, and boneless rib roast — with three different rubs and sauces. You can mix and match, which makes sourcing easy: If you can't find one cut (or if you realize that your local store charges $40 per pound for grassfed boneless rib roast) you can pivot.
I chose this one because you don’t need to make an extra sauce. It doubles down on a mustardy compound butter — half is rubbed on before cooking, half gets served at the table (and if any is leftover, it gets smeared on cold roast beef sandwiches the next day).
But the usefulness of this technique goes well beyond these three recipes. Curry told me it can be used "across the board, across species" for any lean, tender cut of beef, pork, or lamb — so long as you trust the thermometer and not time (so be sure you have a good one).
Because the method is so flexible (and searing can be hands-off), the recipe can also be halved, or scaled up exponentially. “I once cooked prime rib this way for 200 people,” Curry wrote in Fine Cooking. “And there was only one problem: I didn’t have enough well-done pieces because even the ends of the roast were pink.”
But everyone you’re serving will appreciate medium rare, right?
Adapted slightly from "Sear Genius" by Lynne Curry (Fine Cooking, December 2014)
Serves 8 to 10
For the Mustard and Herb Butter:
4 oz. (1/2 cup or 1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
6 medium cloves garlic
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh rosemary leaves
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh sage leaves
1/4 cup loosely packed fresh thyme leaves
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the Prime Rib:
One 5- to 6-lb. boneless beef rib roast, patted dry
Mustard and Herb Butter
2 Tbsp. olive oil, if needed for searing
Melt the butter in an 8-inch skillet over medium heat. Let it foam until it turns light brown and smells nutty, about 5 minutes. Immediately pour the butter into a small heatproof bowl, leaving most of the milk solids in the bottom of the skillet. Refrigerate the butter until solid, about 1 hour (or freeze, to speed this up).
Purée the garlic, rosemary, sage, thyme, mustard, Worcestershire, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1 teaspoon pepper with the solidified browned butter in a food processor to make a thick paste. Reserve 1/4 cup of the butter and rub the rest all over the roast. Put the roast fat side-up on a rack set in a roasting pan and let sit at room temperature for 1 hour before roasting.
Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 300 degrees. Roast the beef until an instant-read thermometer registers 110 degrees for rare, about 1 1/2 hours, or 115 degrees for medium rare, about 10 minutes more. Remove the roast from the oven. Let sit, tented loosely with foil, for up to 2 hours (or continue with the recipe).
To sear in the oven: Heat the oven to 475 degrees. Roast until 125 degrees for rare or 130 degrees for medium rare, about 10 minutes.
Or, to sear on the stove: Heat the oil in a heavy 12-inch skillet until shimmering hot. Sear the beef, turning and pressing down with tongs, until browned all over and cooked to desired temperature, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a cutting board. If there was no earlier rest between roasting and searing, let the roast rest for 15 to 20 minutes. Slice and serve with the reserved mustard butter.
The beef can be roasted and then sit at room temperature, tented with foil, for up to 2 hours before the final sear.
This article originally appeared on Food52.com: http://food52.com/blog/11956-lynne-curry-s-prime-rib-with-mustard-and-herb-butter
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