Everyone says that prime rib is the best oven roast, and for years I’ve been listening to them. Every time prime rib is on sale, which isn’t that often, I feel like I should buy it. And every time I make it, end up spending more time trying to pull away the fat and grizzle then I do eating. I want to eat roast beef, not roast fat and grizzle.
All these celebrity chefs on TV talk about how all the fat marbling you get in prime rib ads so much flavour to the meat. Marbling is one thing, but there are huge chunks of pure fat as big around as your pinkie running throughout prime rib, not to mention all the grizzle.
Why would I pay more money for a roast when I have to trim off a third of it, not including the bones? When you factor in the actual edible parts of the prime rib it is actually as expensive as tenderloin. My dog loves prime rib. He loves how he gets to eat all the parts I cut off and then gets to gnaw on a meaty bone. If our world was run by dogs, it would make perfect sense that prime rib would be the most expensive roast, but it is beyond me that civilized human beings would bid up the price of this fatty, grizzly mess of a roast.
If the same logic applied to chicken, the thighs would be the most expensive part of the chicken. The same chefs who love prime rib also prefer the more grizzly and fatty chicken thighs, but yet they have been unable to brainwash the chicken buying public like they’ve done with the beef buying public. There are a couple of potential explanations. One is that chicken lovers are more independent thinkers and less susceptible to outside influence that beef lovers. The other, more plausible explanation is that many people have dogs, and prime rib is the preferred cut of beef among every single breed of dog.
If beef buyers took the same approach as chicken buyers, eye of round roast would cost twice as much as prime rib. It is pure beef, with no fat, grizzle, or bones. If you cook it slowly on low heat, you can make it every bit as tender as prime rib. Do yourself a favour, next time you want roast beef, buy an eye of round instead of prime rib and put your savings towards a nice bottle of red wine to go with it.