Why Matty Matheson Plastic Wraps His Prime Rib

Rang had never been to America, ever, so I was like, "What better way to introduce Rang to America than Las Vegas and the most iconic piece of meat?" Why don't we have prime rib be a character? The prime rib is our guide. We're driven by the prime rib. And along the way, Rang experiences America for the first time—riding on a horse, learning how to lasso, the rodeo, shooting guns… As much as Rang says he used to run around the jungle in Vietnam with a gun, I still don't believe that. We let the prime rib be our fixer, and we let it guide us through Vegas.

It's a very interesting thing, prime rib. Everyone cooks it differently, everyone has their favorite little accoutrements with it, everyone has a story about prime rib. Growing up, you were either a pot roast kid or a prime rib kid. I was a prime rib guy—not because my parents had money, but because my dad grew up in a slaughterhouse and my grandfather was a butcher, and that was the meat. We weren't rich by any means, but we always had a prime rib dinner most Sundays. People have stories about it! It's a very iconic thing, even more iconic than roasted chicken, or a roasted leg of lamb—prime rib is so American. It's a powerful cut of beef.

When I cook prime rib, sometimes I do a garlic-oil-salt puree, and I'll cover the prime rib and let it sit overnight, and I'll take it out and put it in the oven. Sometimes that burns the garlic, though, and then it gets a little bitter, so recently I've just been doing salt and pepper. You can either cook it low and then turn the heat up at the end, or you can do a sear and then turn it down. You'll get a perfect prime rib if you turn your oven to 500 degrees, as hot as it can go, get it to a nice dark brown, then, when it looks beautiful, turn it down to 275, and if you're cooking a seven-bone prime rib, cook it for about an hour and a half more.

A thing I learned from Adam Perry Lang, that I'm a strong believer in now, I take the prime rib out and I wrap it the same as barbecue. I wrap the whole prime rib in Saran Wrap like a motherfucker, and I let it sit for like an hour. When you wrap it, it breaks down that collagen, all those inside tendons and stuff, so when you slice it, it's perfectly pink all the way through. I'm a big believer in cooking prime rib medium, because then you have that pot roast outside, the deckle, and that eye is nice and pink. That is the best kind of prime rib. You can eat a big piece of prime rib, but you're still having different experiences within that slice. If you serve rare prime rib… that's whack. The gravy is just fat, and flour, and beef drippings.

MAKE THIS: The Best Prime Rib in the World

I'm happy with prime rib, mashed potatoes, corn, just canned corn with butter, a Yorkshire pudding, and gravy. Soft on soft on soft. Fuck a roasted carrot, fuck sweet potatoes, fuck broccoli. I just want soft on soft on soft. Then you're taking the prime rib and dipping it in mashed potatoes, you've got some corn, a little crunch a little sweetness, gravy, some Yorkshire pudding…that's the best. Everything else is kind of just waste. Like, what's the point. Restraint—I don't want, like, broccoli with anchovy and brown butter. Don't get too crazy with shit.

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