Salt Encrusted Prime Rib

This Christmas we decided to have Prime Rib but I was undecided as to how to fix it.  Last week I figured it out.  We decided to do a salt encrusted version on the Big Green Egg.  Well Christmas came and it was time to make some Prime Rib!

The Preparation

The recipe for this is pretty basic.  Season the meat with salt and pepper then cover it with salt then cook it.  I took the meat out of the fridge about an hour before cooking to get the temperature closer to 50 or so before cooking.  Here’s the 3 pound boneless prime rib roast on its cookie sheet with a bit of salt and pepper on it:

Prime rib with salt and pepper dusting

Once the meat was “pre” coated it was time to put it in its salt overcoat. I used basic kosher salt (about 1.5 cups or so) and just wet it a enough so that the salt would stick together. I covered 3 of the 4 sides with the salt. When it was done it looked like a blob of shaved ice sitting on the cookie sheet:

The salt encrusted prime rib ready to be cooked

The Cooking

I placed the prime rib on the Big Green Egg at about 250 degrees, inserted my thermometer and set the temperature alarm to 130 degrees.  When I inserted the thermometer into the meat the temp was 52  degrees.  Then I closed the lid on the ‘Egg and sat on the deck with a holiday beer brewed by my brother and enjoyed the 60 degree temps we had that day.

After about 90 minutes the alarm went off.  I took the meat off of the ‘Egg and covered it with foil to rest for 20 minutes or so.  I took the foil tent off and began scraping off all of the salt.  Here’s what it looked like as I was just about finished removing the salt:

Removing the salt crust from the cooked prime rib

The Serving

I removed all of the salt crust and then sliced it.  The inside was very pink and warm, a perfect medium rare:

Sliced prime rib ready to eat

We served the prime rib with a nice 2006 Coppola Black Label Claret, fresh grated horseradish sour cream, sauteed mushrooms, asparagus, and rice. It was a fantastic meal. The meat was incredibly tender and not salty at all.

This was some of the best prime rib either of us had ever had.  It was super tender and juicy with just enough salt and pepper seasoning.  It was very easy to make.  As long as you keep an eye on the internal temperature and let the meat rest before eating it should come out great.  What a great holiday meal!