In Which Monday Menu Mayhem is Late, But Worth It

In a weekend filled with chaos and illness (parties! recovering from parties! attic cleaning! and all with no internets in the home!) I managed to make one of the biggest Nigella meals yet.

How does this happen?  Well, for starters, one has to be thinking clearly enough in advance to remember to bring The Book down from Scout Camp (check).  And then, one has to have a dinner party in order to excuse the cooking of excessive amounts of food (donezo).  Finally, Wendy Pan has to give you permission to cook the meal at the aforementioned dinner party (yeah, that's really hard).

Anyway, I decided to make the Standing Rib Roast with Mushroom Sauce and Cheddar Mash.

We took pictures, but unfortunately none of them managed to come out looking like food.

First, the rib roast.  Really huge, but really simple, just rub it down with equal parts salt, mustard powder, and garlic oil (Full disclosure: the recipe called for 1 tsp garlic oil and 1 tsp truffle oil... yeah.  Didn't have any of that.  Doubling up on garlic is never a bad idea, though).  Chuck the beast in a 425 degree oven until it's... raring to go.  (I'm sorry... but not really.)

The rib roast was disappointing to me.  I had never cooked one before, and neither had Wendy Pan, so we didn't really know what to expect.  I had bought a nice chunk of meat from a nice local butcher, but I have to say that I was not impressed with the cut.  It was rare (as we prefer it) but it was still dry and borderline tough.  The stuff around the ribs was amazing, but there was also a fair amount of fat mixed in there, too.  That said, the rub was divine.  Like, super duper divine.  Wendy Pan's already planning to use it on her new cooking obsession, pork butts.  It would also be rockin' on beef tenderloin, and really, any type of pork, and I will be using it on all of the above in the future.

The mushroom sauce, thank goodness, went a long way toward helping the dryness.  But then, it involved a stick of butter and a cup of marsala.  Can't really go wrong with that.  It really did have the perfect amount of sweetness and richness to compliment the beef.  The recipe called to add the roast's pan drippings, and I did... but I don't think I will next time.  It added an unnecessary amount of fat to the mushrooms, and not that much more flavorful goodness.

Finally, the cheddar mash.  Did you know that I make bangin' mashed potatoes?  No?  Well I do.  So I have serious expectations for mashed potatoes that are someone else's recipe.  These just called for potatoes, cheddar, and milk.  And even though I added more cheddar than these called for, I still found that they were pretty boring.  Like, if the cheddar's not going to add much more to the flavor of the straight mash, then why am I going to bother to add it?

Here's the thing about this meal: much of it was a learning experience (and fortunately the dinner guests fall in the "friends who are family" category and could be experimented on without paranoia).  I would totally serve the same(-ish) meal again, but now I know how to do it better.  Pick a better cut of meat.  Make the mushrooms straight out of the book (without drippings).  And make your own mashed potatoes, dammit.  (I'll tell you about them sometime.  They're epic)

Next epic Nigella meal?  Ham Hocs in Cider.  I'm not even joking.  Now I just have to find the time...