ROAST FORE RIB OF BEEF
YOU WILL NEED
★ Some good quality sea salt & black
pepper.
★ Some good quality beef dripping.
★ A roasting tin with a rack.
★ Oven heated to 180°C.
★ A reliable meat thermometer
METHOD
Preparing for cooking
Take the joint out of the fridge a couple of hours before
cooking. Season the beef all over with sea salt and black
pepper.
Choosing your beef
Whether you’ve chosen one of our rare breed beef joints
or one from our beer fed Dexters, we guarantee that you
won’t be disappointed.
The forerib is the first five bones of the loin and has
become the classic British roast. The fat content of the
joint gives it tremendous flavour and keeps it moist as it
cooks. The fore rib takes well to our dry ageing process,
thanks to the covering of fat.
What will arrive?
You will have chosen one of our four preparations for
you rib roast:
Bone in - This is just as nature intended with the rib
bones left intact.
French trim - The top of the ribs are trimmed to leave
some bone protruding.
Chined - Part of the rib bone is removed from the joint
making it simpler to carve.
Boned and rolled - This is all meat and no bone and can
be carved very easily.
Keeping your rib joint
If you want to freeze your joint you should do it on the
day it arrives, and keep it in it’s vacuum pack. The
food-grade vacuum-sealed bags we use will help to
prevent freezer burn, and are also ideal for thawing out
later as they help to keep in the moisture during
thawing. Store your joint in the fridge on a plate below
other products.
Cooking
Conventional wisdom suggests that beef joints should have
a browning time before being roasted, either 20 plus
minutes in a hot oven or browning in a pan first. Not only
does this improve the appearance, but also provides a
maillard (browning) on the outside of the beef that
improves the taste. Some chefs prefer to cook slowly at the
beginning of cooking and then brown at the end.
Our Method
This is a tried and tested method of cooking your rib roast
and is the one used by our good friend, Richard Turner, in
his fantastic book, Hawksmoor at Home.
Heat a couple of tablespoons of beef dripping in a heavy
frying pan and sear the joint all over.
Place the rib joint, fat side down, on a rack in a shallow
roasting pan and roast at 180ºC/350ºF/ gas mark 4 for the
calculated time.
Remove the meat when the time is up, or better still when a
meat thermometer in the thickest part shows the right
temperature. Allow the joint to rest for 20 minutes, by
which time the temperature will have risen by a couple of
degrees.
See our butcher’s tip over the page for carving. ROASTING TIMES TABLE
Our Head Butcher’s Tip
Carving
Large bone in and French Trim Joint
Put the rib on it’s base and make a cut down the inside of
the ribs to release them from the meat.
Turn the meat to stand on the ribs and carve downwards
to cut slices ready to serve.
Small bone in rib Joint
Lay the joint on it’s side and remove the bone.
Carve across the width of the joint to create short slices.
About your Fore Rib Joint
The fore rib comes from the upper part of the back towards
the front of the animal in what is know as the middle. It has
a good layer of fat and marbling in the meat that helps to
baste the meat while it cooks. Rib eye steaks come from the
same area.
Your fore rib joint has been dry aged in our purpose built
maturation room. It will be a dark red colour on areas that
have been exposed to the air and when cut will be a lighter
red and slightly moist.
Dry ageing works well on rib joints and only good quality
beef will take to this process. It must have good marbling in
the meat and a good layer of fat on the outside for
protection from the air during the ageing process.
Don’t forget that the fat on your beef is the good type of
natural fat that comes from the way our beef is grass fed.
This is the opposite to synthetic fats and oils and the fat that
is found on factory farmed beef. Our beef is high in omega 3
and 6.
If you’re worried about the fat or don’t like the taste, then
cut it off when you carve and not before you put it in the
oven, as it helps to keep the joint moist during cooking and
imparts flavour into the meat
Cooking Time
Internal
Temperature
Medium Rare
40 min per kilo
57ºC
Medium
45 min per kilo
60ºC
Well Done
50 min per kilo
70ºC
SERVINGS PER PERSON
A general rule is to allow 225g of boneless meat or 340g of
bone in meat per person. Based on this the table below will
give you a rough idea of how much meat you should need.
If you have a family of big eaters with hearty appetites and
like to have some leftovers, our advice would be to go for
the next size up to be on the safe side.
SERVINGS
BONELESS (KG)
BONE IN (KG)
4-5
1
1.25
6-7
1.25
1.75
8-9
1.75
2.75
10 - 11
2.25
3
12 - 13
2.75
3.5
14 - 15
3.25
4.5
16 - 17
3.75
5.5
18 -19
4
6.5
20 - 21
4.5
7
22 - 23
5
8
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