Roast Beef
This recipe is pretty good:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/12/step-by-step-food-lab-reverse-sear-prime-rib.html
If you want to do yorkshire pudding, it should start the day before. See:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/12/the-best-yorkshire-pudding-popover-recipe.html
Suggest the following customizations to the prime rib recipe:
- Salt the meat at least two days in advance (detach from bone and salt between bone and roast) . Put in a rack in the fridge, and uncover in the fridge the morning of the roast.
- Allow at least 4 hours for cooking, and 30 minutes for resting. It's easier to slow it down than speed it up. It will cook linearly until the temperature gets to about 105 (at an oven temp of 225), and then it will start to slow down.
- Instead of a reverse sear, go with a sear and reverse sear. This is better from a food safety perspective and cuts down on the cooking time, likely without meaningfully affecting tenderness (because the temperature rises quickly only in a range with minimal enzymatic activity, except for the very edge).
- Preheat the oven to 450F or 500F and cook for 20 minutes.
- Do not rotate the roast in the oven. Place one side of the roast towards the back. It will cook slightly more than the front, giving some medium meat, and some medium-rare.
- Reduce oven temperature to 225F and cook until the coldest part of the roast reaches 130F. Add any herbs or spices (e.g. thyme, black pepper) to roast here. Do not add garlic cloves, they won't cook. This temperature is too low to cook much of anything else in the oven (e.g. potatoes, onions). Probably 200F for 5 hours would be even better.
- Remove from oven, and allow to rest for at least 30 minutes (maybe 40). While it's resting, you can do yorkshire pudding and gravy. Note: this roast will produce almost no drippings for gravy. If you want gravy, buy beef stock.
- Reheat the oven to 500.
- Return to the oven for 5 minutes to heat and crisp exterior.
- Make sure to slice with a sharp knife. Off the bone and on a carving board is easiest, but some purists insist on slicing on the bone on china. Humour them.
- Because the roast isn't very hot, warming plates is a good idea.