Once A Year Prime Rib

If I ate as much red meat as I’d like I’d probably keel over.  As a kid, a rib eye was a treat and it was also the cheapest cut because back then filet mignon was the desired cut.  Now I can get an entire tenderloin for less than what a prime rib can cost.  When we switched our meat buying from plastic coated styrofoam trays in the grocery store to whole animals through a local butcher, we started thinking differently about how to eat red meat.

We eat less of it now because the cow has to last us a year, and locally raised beef, especially pastured beef, tend to be smaller than the behemoths you get at the grocery store.  And buying whole animals has saved us a ton of money.  Not a little bit of money, but a lot of money.  We know where the meat came from, how it was raised, what it ate, and I get it cut and wrapped exactly the way I want it.  I save one whole prime rib and I make it on Christmas day.  And this is the way I’ve made it for years.  Enjoy!

My Prime Rib

1 prime rib with bones (about 8lbs boneless)
1 bunch thyme destemmed
¼ cup Alder smoked sea salt
¼ cup fine ground black pepper
1 cup red wine
4 cups beef broth
1 or 2 lg sweet onions
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together salt, pepper, thyme and add just enough olive oil to make a paste.

Slice onion into four very thick slices, place on bottom of roasting pan, rub beef with olive oil salt and herb mixture, place on top of onion slices, add 1 cup beef broth, about a cup of red wine.

Bake until desired temperature about an hour and a half to two hours for medium rare to medium.  Remove beef from pan to rest, pouring drippings and onions into a sauce pan, adding remaining beef broth and boil for 10 minutes. Strain au jus before serving.