Rib Roast of Beef

By tulawdog

Ingredients

• Makes 2 servings per rib
• One 2- to 4-rib roast of beef, weighing 4 1/2 to 12 pounds
• Flour
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 to 1 cup beef stock or broth (optional, if making pan gravy)

Preparation

Step 1

Remove the roast from the refrigerator 2 1/2 to 4 hours before cooking. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Place the roast in an open, shallow roasting pan, fat side up. Sprinkle with a little flour, and rub the flour into the fat lightly. Season all over with salt and pepper. Put the roast in the preheated oven and roast according to the roasting chart at the end of the slideshow above, timing the minutes exactly. (This works out to be 15 minutes per rib, or approximately five minutes cooking time per pound of trimmed, ready-to-cook roast.) When cooking time is finished, turn off the oven. Do not open the door at any time. Allow the roast to remain in the oven until oven is lukewarm, or about two hours. The roast will still have a crunchy brown outside and an internal heat suitable for serving as long as 4 hours after removing from the oven. Note: To make a thin pan gravy, remove excess fat from the meat drippings, leaving any meat pieces in the pan. Stir in 1/2 to 1 cup beef stock or broth. Bring to the boil, scraping the bottom of the pan to loosen the meat pieces. Simmer for one minute and season to taste. Note: Don't attempt this recipe if your oven isn't well-insulated (that is, if it's extremely hot to the touch when it's in use). Since ovens vary in their insulation, to be safe, you may want to rig up a probe thermometer or other oven-safe thermometer you can read without opening the oven door, and pull the roast out if it reaches the desired degree of doneness early.