Eating "Prime" With John Whalen III

This holiday season, as you're planning a special dinner with friends or family, consider making prime rib your centerpiece! PRIME by John Whalen III is new cookbook featuring hundreds of recipes for a complete prime rib dinner, with both classic takes and fresh new approaches to your prime rib feast. Celebrated chefs and experts-in-their-field contributors nationwide have come together to take your prime rib experience to a whole new level in this cookbook, with perfect wine and cheese pairings, creative side dishes, tasty recipes for your soup or salad course, and more.

We're excited to share a mouth-watering prime rib recipe here, as well as a deliciously festive dessert recipe to finish off your holiday feast: Perfectly Chewy Molasses Cookies! Enjoy, and Happy Holidays!

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Frenched Prime Rib
Makes 6 to 8 servings
Active Time: 2 Hours
Total Time: 6 Hours

Frenching a cut of meat isn't too challenging and is normally done when serving to impress. Essentially, when you french a cut of meat, you trim the meat away from the upper portion of the bones so that when roasted, the bones flare out at the top in an elegant fashion. To french, all you need is a sharp carving knife and paring knife in order to remove the meat from the bones. As seen in the recipe, I encourage you to tie bunches of thyme and rosemary into the spaces between the bones for an extra bit of flavor and fashion!

Ingredients:

• A 6-rib rib roast
• 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt
• 2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
• ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme, plus 3 bunches
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary, plus 3 bunches

Directions:

• Remove the rib roast from the refrigerator and place on cooling racks over a large carving board, bone side down. In order to french the rib roast, you will need to cut off the meat that is on top of the bones. To do so, go about 2 inches down the ribs and using a carving knife, cut down through the meat until you reach the bone. Make a sharp cut and then cut up the bone so that the top of the meat can be peeled off. This top meat is very delicate and flavorful and works great in stews.
• Stand the rib roast up and starting with the left bone, cut down 1 to 2 inches along the bone, cut across to the next bone, and then cut back up so that you get a rectangular chunk of the meat to come apart from the space between the ribs. Do this to all the ribs, and then gently cut away the meat so that the ribs are left to stand openly and on their own. Using a paring knife, gently scrape away any bits of meat that still cling to the ribs. Set roast aside.
• In a small bowl, combine the 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt and coarsely ground black pepper. Using your hands, massage the seasoning into the rib roast so that the grains of salt and pepper cling to it firmly.

If you're preparing a holiday season feast, these chewy molasses cookies should be your go-to dessert. The extra kick of ginger makes them feel especially festive!

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• ½ teaspoon cloves
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup white sugar, set aside in a bowl for rolling

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, egg, and molasses.
• In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt.
• Add the dry ingredients to the molasses mixture and stir to combine.
• Chill the dough for 1 hour.
• Shape the chilled dough into rounded tablespoonfuls, roll in the white sugar, and place on the parchment-lined baking sheet, at least 1 inch apart.
• Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, until just set.
• Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire cooling rack.

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