Originally published in the December issue
There are plenty of reasons people roast large pieces of meat for holiday meals: It's crowd-pleasing. It feeds a lot of people. For reasons unexplained, it's festive. And it's not all that difficult, provided you follow our guaranteed foolproof plan. For starters, graduate to a more interesting, more luxurious, and more celebratory cut of meat than the usual — here we offer leg of lamb and prime rib. Next, employ a few simple, essential techniques that will make the meat juicier, the skin crispier, and the whole thing generally better than any roast anyone in your family has ever served:
• Take the meat out of the refrigerator at least 45 minutes before cooking. You want the whole thing to be roughly the same temperature at the outset for even cooking.
• If the recipe doesn't call for you to use the rack in your roasting pan — see the prime rib recipe below — here's a tip: Place the empty pan in the oven while it's preheating. When the roast goes in the hot pan, the bottom will begin to brown immediately.
• After cooking, transfer the roast to a cutting board and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. This is critical. Don't poke or prod or lick or insert anything. As the meat rests, carryover cooking will raise the internal temperature as much as 10 degrees.
• The oven must be preheated accurately, because the internal temperature of the meat is your only gauge of doneness. Calibrate your oven with an oven thermometer, typically stainless steel with spring action. (The spring expands as the oven heats up and moves the pointer on the face of the dial.)
• Test the internal temperature with an instant-read meat thermometer, preferably with a large, digital readout, like the superlative Super-Fast Thermapen (three to four seconds and accurate to within 1 degree; about $96; thermoworks.com).
Apply those basics to these recipes from two chefs who know how to please crowds, and your friends and loved ones will give you much better presents this year.
Leg of Lamb
Chris Pandel, The Bristol, Chicago
Meltingly tender with just a little game to excite the palate, roast leg of lamb with a simple rub of herbs makes for a superb main course (and I always buy a little too much meat, for sandwiches the next day). Ask your butcher for a semiboneless leg of lamb, about 6 lbs. He'll remove the aitchbone (or hip bone) and then roll and tie that section (making it easier to carve) while leaving the rest of the bone intact. (It makes a good han-dle for steadying the lamb while carving.) Whisk together 1 tbsp coarsely ground black peppercorns, 1 tbsp red-chile flakes, 1 fresh bay leaf (chopped) or 1 dry bay leaf (crumbled), leaves from 4 sprigs of thyme, 2 tbsp finely chopped rosemary, 2 tbsp finely chopped mint, 1 cup olive oil, ¼ cup balsamicvinegar, and ¼ cup honey. Preheat the oven to 400, turn on the fan and crack a window. Coat the lamb with the rub (making sure you get lots of spices and herbs onto the meat) and sprinkle the roast with ¼ cup coarse salt. (If you own a mortar and pestle, crush the herbs and peppercorns into a paste with the salt and drizzle in the olive oil, mashing the paste as you go. It will make the aromatic quality that much more intense. Add the honey and vinegar at the end.) You will probably use only about half the rub mixture, so reserve the remainder and use it as a dressing on greens to make fantastic sandwiches with leftover lamb. Place the roast on the rack in the roasting pan and sear in the oven for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 and roast until a meat thermometer inserted in the thickest part (and away from the bone) reads 130 to 135 for medium rare. Allow about 15 to 18 minutes per pound and begin checking after 90 minutes. Remove and loosely cover the roast with aluminum foil, allowing the lamb to rest. Carve and serve with black-olive tapenade. Serves six with leftovers.
Prime Rib Roast
Charlie Palmer, Aureole, New York City
I'm a traditionalist. For holiday meals, I go retro with a gorgeous rib roast, which is exactly that: the seven-rib section between the shoulder (or "chuck" section) and the loin. To know how much to buy, a good rule of thumb is one rib for two people. But because the diameter of the meaty "eye" varies, I overcompensate. For six people, get a four-rib roast, about 9 lbs. Have your butcher cut it from the marbled loin or "short" end, and have the ends of the bones scraped clean (called "frenching"). Ask to keep the trimmed meat so you can throw it in the pan with the roast. Then you can eat it over the sink while the roast rests.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Lightly score the external fat in a crosshatch pattern with the tip of a paring knife and rub liberal amounts of coarse salt and ground black pepper right down in there. That's pretty much all you need to do to a rib roast. The temperature does the rest. Searing the meat in a hot oven and then finishing the cooking at a moderate temperature gives you a beautifully browned crust and tender interior. For medium rare to rare meat, place your roast (fat side up) in the pre-heated oven for 45 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 350 and cook until an instant-read thermometer inserted horizontally into the center of the eye of the meat reads 125. This takes about ten minutes per pound, or about another hour to an hour and a half, for a total cooking time of about two hours. (Adjust according to the weight of your roast.) Allow to rest. To carve, press the blade of your carving knife lengthwise against the bones and follow the line of the meat down to the cutting board. Remove the eye roast and slice into generous portions. Save the bones for yourself. Serves six with leftovers.
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