This is my first Christmas season with my lady. This is the 44th year that I have been Jewish, and have done nothing to celebrate Christmas other than watching A Christmas Story.
Even though neither one of us is religious, I thought it would be nice to make a Christmas dinner. And since Kroger was practically creating cows on demand to slaughter for rib roasts, I figured that would be an excellent dinner for us.
At least I did until I got up to the cashier. And then I realized that the roast I was about to purchase was $71, and not $17. I don’t know where I got the idea that rib roasts went for $2/pound, even with my shopper card that lets me get six 12 packs of Coke in exchange for my entire purchase history so they know whether I buy prefer the generic or brand version of Preparation-H oh I just said too much.
So I went back to the lying priced rib roast bin, and found a ribeye roast that was an actual $17 piece of meat, which is a plenty reasonable substitute for prime rib that will say whatever you want to trick you into buying it.
I decided to make some mushrooms as a side, because that’s just what we do here. And I tried to make Yorkshire pudding as the other side, which I have never made or eaten.
Why did I decide that Yorkshire pudding would be an appropriate Christmas side dish? Fuck, I don’t know, it just sounds like something people would have at a Christmas dinner.
“My dear Poopsie, could you pass me the Yorkshire pudding, it looks divine! Such a shame about cousin Blaine, getting disqualified from the crew finals at Brighton Town is going to destroy his chances of getting into Stratford-on-Stratfordshire University. Why don’t we go down for a few chuckers at polo grounds after dinner and take his mind off of it?”
(I have no idea why my vision of the typical Christmas dinner is some douchy British or old-money New England family, just go with it.)
I was kind of disappointed to find out that Yorkshire pudding is just eggs, flour, and whole milk – or, as the rest of the world calls them, popovers. You’re supposed to cook them with beef drippings, but I didn’t have any of that. I did, however, have bacon fat, which I would say is far better.
The best part of making this dish was putting a teaspoon of bacon fat into each muffin tin, and having my lady look at them and say “what the fuck is that??”, and seeing the look on her face when she found out that all of that was going to be frying her side dish.
Anyways, no one gives a shit about the poser popovers when you have a 3 pound piece of beef cooking. After 30 minutes I took it out to take its temperature, and got all sorts of crazy readings – like 140, 150 degrees. I panicked – as I am wont to do – until I was able to find one around 110. I put it back in, and went through the same thing 10 minutes later, and was worried that I just ruined a perfectly good ribeye and our Christmas and every Christmas after.
After having faith and letting it roast 10 more minutes, and then waiting an agonizing 10 more minutes to cut it, I ended up with this:
Not to brag, but I have to brag, that looked pretty fucking awesome! And it tastes fantastic, so humblebrag. Is that how a humblebrag works? Look at me, I’m so humble I don’t even know how to humblebrag.
The yorkshire pudding, it might be the most British food that Britain ever Britained. I cobbled something together (ha, cobbled, British!) from a series of recipes I found, and most called for 1/2 teaspoon of salt. You would need 1/2 cup to make these bland posers flavorful. And they came out kind of dense, which was not what I had expected, but since I kind of made up my own, I can only blame myself.
(Incidentally, there is a recipe out there that allegedly was Alfred Hitchcock’s. I’m sure he shows up every time someone uses it. Actually, I’m going to blame my popover failure on M. Night Shyamalan.)
The mushrooms were pretty great too, and probably would be in most meals, but again…beef…
CAN I MAKE A MESS WITH THIS RECIPE?
You’re going to have to make a batter for the uppity muffins, which gets a bit sloppy, and searing the meat is going to cause some grease splatters, so I would say yes.
SIGN ME UP, LET’S GO!!
Rib Eye Roast, Yorkshire Pudding, and Mushrooms in Garlic Sauce
Mushrooms adapted from NY Times Cooking
Ingredients
RIBEYE ROAST
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 3 pound bone-in ribeye roast
Salt and pepper
YORKSHIRE PUDDING
1/4 cup of beef drippings, bacon fat, melted butter, or your favorite fat
1 egg
1 cup flour
1 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
MUSHROOMS IN GARLIC SAUCE
1 pound mushrooms, stemmed, cleaned, and sliced in half
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon canola oil
6 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/3 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (don’t use the stuff from the green bottle, this is way too good to ruin with jarred old juice)
Directions
RIBEYE ROAST
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Season the roast liberally with salt and pepper, and sear on each side until browned, about 4-5 minutes per side. Make sure you get the edges too.
Line a sheet pan with foil, and place the roast on the pan. Put the pan in the oven and cook the roast until an instant-read thermometer reads 130 degrees F in the center of the roast.
Remove the roast from the oven and place on a cutting board. Let it rest for 10 minutes before carving.
YORKSHIRE PUDDING
Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F.
In a medium bowl, beat the eggs, flour, milk, and salt together. Refrigerate the batter and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Add a teaspoon of fat to each tin in a 12 tin muffin pan. Place the pan in the oven for 5 minutes, to melt the fat and let it heat up. Remove the pan from the oven.
Fill each cup about halfway (about 2-3 tablespoons per cup). Put the pan back in the oven for 10 minutes.
Remove pan from oven, and take puddings out of the tins and serve.
MUSHROOMS IN GARLIC SAUCE
Toss the mushrooms with the olive oil, salt, and pepper.
Add the canola oil to a large skillet and heat over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and let them sit until browned on one side (you may have to do this in two batches, depending on the size of the skillet).
Add the garlic and sauté for a minute or two, until they just start to brown.
Pour in the wine, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the mushrooms are well glazed. Remove from the heat, add the parsley and lemon juice, and serve.
Adam's Messy Kitchen 