Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Accidental Sort of Beef Rib Roast

I am on a mission to cook down my freezer before fall gets here.  It's full of vacuum-sealed bags of meats I've cut and prepped over the summer.  

Sometimes things get covered over or hidden behind something else and then forgotten about.  Like this orphaned roast I cooked this weekend.


Well it wasn't your typical boneless beef rib roast.  You might remember my mis-steak this summer when I royally screwed up tried to butcher a whole ribeye thinking it was a strip loin.  So this was the roast part from that screw up, with the spinalis dorsi and lip removed.  Basically it is the center eye of the ribeye.  

No recipe here since this was such an odd cut of beef (thanks to me being a doofus), just some ideas and techniques.

I had already tied the roast when I originally cut it out so all I had to do was give it a heavy coating of McCormick Grill Mates Cowboy Rub.   This is my favorite store bought rub for beef roasts and thick steaks.  It has a coarse grind and big flavors that pack taste & texture on the outside of your roast that balance well with the tender juicy beef inside. 


I had my Big Green Egg ceramic grill/smoker/oven set up for indirect heat at 250f for a nice long slow roast.  I had the roast on a v-rack above a stoneware dish with 1 1/2 cups of beef stock in it to catch the drippings and make au jus.

You could also use a roasting pan or heck, even just the rack from your toaster oven over a grill safe pan.

It took right at 90 minutes for the roast to reach an internal temperature of 125f.  I flipped it once during that time because the bottom gets a little steaming effect from the stock below.  I removed the roast to a rack and let it rest where it raised to 134f.  Meanwhile, I changed the grill to direct heat, raised the temp to 500f, and seared the roast for about 90 seconds per side.


I let it rest a few more minutes after the sear....


Then sliced it thin....

It almost looks like a tenderloin since it doesn't have the lip or cap.

And served it with garlic green beans and Boursin cheese mashed potatoes with au jus.


This and seconds disappeared quickly.

A word about doneness.  Our family likes our beef roasts just on the rare side of medium rare.  But my dad can't stand even medium rare, he wants it well done.  If you have one or two people that want theirs more well done, just heat the au jus in a small skillet and cook slices just a minute per side in the au jus.  It will still be tender but no sign of red at all. 

If you want to cook the whole roast to more than medium rare - when cooking during the slow roast period, cook it to an internal temp about 7-10 degrees less than your desired final internal temp.  It will raise up those final degrees during the first rest and the very quick sear won't raise it up much at all. 

[Standard Disclaimer]  I have had a few paid gigs with McCormick Grill Mates; however, this post is not one of them, I paid full price for the rub, and my opinion of the Cowboy rub is my own.