I’m not sure if this happens to other people, but sometimes I really crave a rib roast.
You heard me right. A standing beef rib roast, as in that giant hunk of roasted beast that you serve around the holidays. One worthy of Cindy Loo Who.
It happened to me last night.
Luckily, I happened to have some beef spare ribs in the fridge, since we were expecting a photographer friend of ours to drop in and I wanted to give him a little something to nibble on.
(Remember the Flintstones and the Brontosaurus ribs that tipped their car over? I blame that for my obsession with ribs.)
I prepared them much in the same way I do a standing roast. These ribs have all the rich flavor of a rib roast—without the wild expense, steep time commitment, and insane amount of leftovers.
When your ribs have been in the oven for about a half hour or so, your house will start to smell heavenly.
When they’re done, the meat will have developed a gorgeous dark brown crust speckled with bits of rosemary and crispy brown garlic, flecks of white pepper, and thyme leaves.
The ribs will glisten from a mixture of olive oil and sumptuously rich, molten beef fat. The meat itself will be meltingly tender.
I can almost guarantee that you’ll wind up licking your fingers and wondering if you can, in fact, actually eat the bones.
Garlic and Rosemary Roasted Beef Ribs
4 lbs. beef spare ribs (about 8-10 ribs)
1 cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic
1 Tbls. powdered garlic
1 Tbls. onion powder
2 Tbls. dried rosemary
1 Tbls. fresh thyme leaves
1 1/2 tsp. powdered bay
1 tsp. ground white pepper
3 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. ground celery seed
12 baby carrots, diced
1 smallish onion, diced
Preheat oven to 300. Line a sheet pan with foil and set aside.
Bag up your ribs
Unwrap your ribs and put them into a gallon-sized zip-top bag. Set aside while you prepare the marinade.
Start the marinade
Put the olive oil in a medium-sized bowl. Mash up your garlic, either with a garlic press or by mincing it really well then mashing it with the flat of your knife.
Add all the other herbs and spices
Toss in the powdered garlic, onion powder, dried rosemary, fresh thyme leaves, powdered bay leaf, ground white pepper, kosher salt, sugar, and ground celery seed.
Whisk with a fork until well combined. The marinade will the fairly thick and goopy. That’s OK. It should look about like this:
Add the marinade to the ribs
Grab your bagged-up ribs. Pour the marinade into the bag over the ribs.
Seal the bag up well. Holding the bag, smoosh the marinade around so that it coats the ribs fairly evenly.
Roast the ribs
Remove the ribs from the bag and lay them out evenly on your prepared sheet pan.
Put the pan in the oven and roast at 300 degrees for about a half an hour.
After 30 minutes, add the veggies
After a half an hour, yank the pan out of the oven. Crank the heat up to 350 degrees. Strew the chopped onion and carrots around your ribs.
By now, your ribs will have started to develop their crust.
Finish roasting
Put them back in the oven for about 50-60 minutes. They’re done when the ribs are brown and have a glorious crust. If you pull at a rib with a fork, the meat should come away easily.
Serve and enjoy!
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Copyright 2008 The Hungry Mouse�/Jessica B. Konopa. All rights reserved.
