# Cooking/Reheating process -Prime Rib in rest?



## tomr (Oct 5, 2005)

Hi, am a new owner of a small bar & restaurant, normally a one-person kitchen. Our patrons have asked us to add a Prime Rib dinner night. We expect to sell approx 30 plates with 14oz slices over a 5 hour period (3 10lb logs). Our experience shows there is no way to predict how many orders and when ordered during the night. I know how to cook good prime rib at least for myself. What we cannot figure out is how to cook these and then serve them hot or even warm as they are needed. The patrons usually want them rare or medium rare. So I have two basic questions.
* How can this be done, it seems like you need to cook them all ahead of time and then reheat somehow…but how?
* Can the left over meat be reheated and served a few days later?

I apologize if this is a stupid question. 
-Tom


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## dano1 (Oct 23, 2003)

if ya got an alto-sham or other cook and hold your good to go. Any leftovers jus toss back in the sham to reheat. If not you can keep warm on a rack in a 400 pan on your steam table-if you got one. Or even in a hotel pan above your hot window. Any reheats do low and slow.

Yes prime rib can be held and reheated. Its not optimal but i used to have to hold for up to a week for the next service. Reheated wrapped in plastic in a sham. Otherwise reheat on your table or in the oven-low and slow.

You may think about running PR just on fri/sat nights or as part of some other promo so you aren't sitting on too much cooked off at once. It's ok to run out, provided its not 6pm on a staurday . Also think about about utilization of end cuts, parts of the large end, older peices, etc as prime ribeye sandwiches, french dips, salads and so on. 

A quick and easy upsell for PR is blackening-personally i hate to ruin a good cut of meat like this but you can upcharge a buck or 2, people love it an it'll take care of older cuts. An age old steakhouse method for reheating portion cuts is to toss on a sizzler, hit with a little jus, and cover your PR with a leaf r 2 of lettuce-it works to keep your color. Whatever ya do, don't be tempted to toss your portion cuts into your jus on the table to reheat-this shows no respect for the product and looks like s**t.

hth


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## panini (Jul 28, 2001)

Tom,
There are no stupid questions here. I'm on the sweet side and it's been years since PR. You will always have a greater cook as you work in from the ends. So you will be looking at a couple of mw from the both ends in to the middle. The primes can be held warmed. You probably will cook ahead of time or have them cooking in stages during service times. Making sure you give ample time for the beef to rest after cooking. We always had them cooked ahead of time giving us a larger selections on the wd-mw. We used the lettuce method to bring up a cooked stage, like mr-med. Hot au jus was our heat for serving, bottom.
Again, please refer to the hot chefs here for it's been a while for me.
Like Dano, there is always blackened or peppered for reworks.
pan. Good luck and it's great to see someone reacting to their patrons. You're on the right track


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## kuan (Jun 11, 2001)

Don't forget the prime rib sandwich on the lunch menu.

You can hold it in the oven at 200 for a few hours and it should be OK. Just cover it with foil. To bump it up to Med or Well put it in your jus. Some places have been known to, uh, lettuce on top and bottom, microwave. I don't recommend this.

Don't forget the cool down at closing. Bag it and ice it down to cool. I've taken primes out of the walkin before and they were still not cold, not hot, but kinda room temperature. Health dept. will come down on you for that and you really don't want to toss $60-80 into the trash.


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## ufchef (Oct 7, 2005)

I'm not sure if I understand the lettuce trick. You put the lettuce on your rib then you place the portion in the oven to reheat or bring it up a temp. or on a hot plate? Or both? We serve rib everynight at my work and I would really like to improve the look of reheats and mw-w cuts. Thanks but I kinda need the walk through on this one.


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## dano1 (Oct 23, 2003)

slap a leaf or 2 of lettuce on your portion, a little jus, toss in the oven to reheat or up the temp.


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## suzanne (May 26, 2001)

Not that we want to encourage cheating here  but a long time ago (I think) somebody posted about applying a little beet juice to the surface of the slice, to give it a nice rosy appearance.  (You didn't hear that from me!  )


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## tomr (Oct 5, 2005)

Like to thank all for your valuable input. They were very helpful as well as a few sent to me by some others.

Basicaly this is what we are now doing (testing).
1. Take out at temp 120 and cover
2. Serving Rare or MR, slice and if not hot place in shallow pan with little jus in a pizza oven for about ~2 min. This seems to maintain redness and yet rewarms quick. 
3. For serv medium and slice currently rare, toss in fry pan having some coffee in the bottom. The coffe colors the outside without leaving a tast. So the outside looks M and the inside is really MR. A Chief told me that people who order their prime rib M or MW really only want the outside with no visual pink and the inside tender. So far this seems to be true since no one has retruned their meat to be recooked. Unlike sending out a real medium through-and-through and having it sent back becouse they said it was too done.

The above works for leftovers that are usable the following week also.

4. For serving medium and slices are currently meadium the trick of using the lettuce really works well.


Of course the ideal would be to have one opf those cook and hold machines Dano talks about. They're a little out of my price range for now.

Thank you panini and kuan for you great input. Suzanne haven't tried the beet juice but am going to test it. Sounds like a possable of changing a MR to R or M to MR.

Thanks again to All

Tom


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## even stephen (Oct 10, 2005)

Beet juice! Sounds like your trying to pawn off over cooked meat.
I would not try to hide or disguise the temp of a steak. How 
embarrassed would you be if someone in the dining room found out.
I would suggest getting your money back with sandwiches, soups,
or as someone else said blackened prime rib. 
For what its worth.

stephen


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## suzanne (May 26, 2001)

I didn't mean to condone that beet juice trick -- quite the contrary. I said it as a joke.


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## skilletlicker (Aug 19, 2005)

oops :look:


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## tomr (Oct 5, 2005)

Ok,

As new to this business, I’ve already heard some very strange techniques. :crazy: 

Thanks for clarifying that up. It will save me time by NOT testing.

We’re actually using the left over the next day for lunch sandwiches specials.

I’ll try not to be so gullible in the future.

- Tom


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## dano1 (Oct 23, 2003)

sounds like ya got a handle on it . Remember where you're cutting from also for your temps, if you have the luxury i.e. knock your rares out of the center and move out by temp. in my book its ok to 86 a temp on prime rib if you can't approach it reasonably well-wack your rares out, move on to mr etc...


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## al capone (Dec 7, 2015)

I agree with the reheating process using lettuce leaves but at our restaurant we use a different method to keep the rare and med rare to perfect color. After we cook the prime rib to 105 internal temp we cool it and then wrap in cellophane. After the first slice is cut for reheating we store the rib vertically in a tall round clear container in the refrigerated table. This keeps all the juices in the rib and the flavor is fresh cooked taste. You can keep in this manner for three days. Remember to cover the newly exposed meat so it doesn't dry out.


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