Sugar and spice and everything nice
Standing rib roast is a spectacular dish, so grand it seems just right for a holiday menu. Sliced thick, the beef covers enough of the dinner plate so you have to spoon the side dishes right onto the meat. But the ample presentation is only part of the thrill. The taste is also magnificent. Marbled and tender, standing rib tastes like beef used to taste.
The meat is a splurge, but it is easy to roast. You set it in the oven and essentially come back in an hour and a half. Standing rib loves dry heat, and you don't need to baste it. So the roast became the main course for a dinner for eight we cooked recently in a newly renovated kitchen in Wellesley. A family had ''bought" us in an auction to benefit Jewish Family & Children's Service, and we turned the event into a cooking class that ended with dinner. A very late dinner, we might add.
Guests sipped wine in the kitchen while we whirred flour, butter, and sour cream in a food processor for a rich dough, then rolled it out and scattered the rectangle with thinly sliced potatoes and chopped rosemary. Golden squares of the buttery tart were served hot from the oven, along with a simple salad, to tide guests over. As we cut vegetables and checked on the meat, we gave the guests a running commentary on what we were doing. The rib roast, coated with a mustard crust, had been put into the oven before anyone arrived because we wanted to make sure it was ready in time (we might have started earlier; more on this later). Quickly, the kitchen filled with the irresistible smell of the meat roasting.
We cut up sturdy organic carrots, which we cooked in the style of Vichy, a classic French presentation in which the orange roots are simmered in water with butter and sugar until the liquid evaporates from the pan, producing very tender and glazed vegetables. We put together our favorite popover recipe -- eggs, milk, and flour in an electric mixer -- and layered the thin batter with sharp cheddar in buttered muffin cups. Spotless glass doors on one of the new ovens (there were three) let everyone watch the popovers as they rose to the tops of the pans and burst into charming irregular shapes.
Time to check the meat, which, we figured, was about done. We were looking for 125 on a meat thermometer, or medium-rare; the temperature rises 5 degrees while the meat rests after roasting. We had 15 degrees to go. Our hosts were worried about the oven, which had practically refused to finish cooking their Thanksgiving bird a week earlier. A few days later, they said, cookies took far longer to bake than normal. So we cranked up the temperature, against the advice of the butcher at John Dewar & Co. in Newton Centre, who had insisted that we not fiddle with raising and lowering the oven. ''It's an expensive cut," he said. Indeed, the 9-pound bone-in roast cost $12.99 a pound (during the holidays, the price goes down to $10.99). If asked, the butcher can bone the meat and retie it onto the bones so they form a natural rack, making slicing easier. We preferred to roast the meat the old-fashioned way.
It did look brown and enticing. But the temperature was hardly moving. On to the dessert. We removed the rind and pith from large navel oranges, cut them into slices, sprinkled them with freshly squeezed juice, and scattered them with fine matchsticks of rind. Then we made a moist, nut-and-raisin-studded spice cake -- more lovely kitchen smells. Two cakes were already sitting on the dining room buffet, one frosted with a buttery cream cheese mixture, the other plain, simply dusted with confectioners' sugar. They would go with the oranges. We did not add softly whipped cream to the dessert, but you can, of course. In another oven, our cake didn't seem to be baking, but -- unlike the meat -- we had backups. (The cake eventually took an extra hour.)
Now we were officially worried about the roast. We'd planned dinner for 9 p.m. and it was well past that. We were testing the meat here and there with a thermometer, and the temperature was correct in several places -- or was it that we decided it was finally time to eat? We let the meat rest very briefly, then began carving. The first cut was rare and stunning, the juices flowing onto the cutting board and the meat releasing a glorious waft of beefy aroma. We sent the guests into the dining room to sit down. Sheryl carved while Julie turned the roasting juices into a splendid red-wine sauce. The second slice of meat was just as beautiful, a little more rare perhaps. Alas, the third slice was too undercooked to eat.
''Time to get out the skillets," advised Christine Merlo, a superb cook who was assisting us. We fired two skillets, seared the middle slices of the roast, and plated the food as quickly as we could, adding the pudgy popovers and glistening carrots.
The party in the dining room had turned lively as soon as the guests sat down. In the kitchen, we nibbled delicious bits of the roast from the cutting board, set out the spicy cakes and oranges for dessert, and disappeared into the chilly night.
So you plan a festive meal and something goes wrong. The house was filled with laughter and wonderful smells of sugar and spice. Mishaps never ruin an evening. In fact, they become a great tale later.
