Last year, Bill and I accidentally started a tradition. At least, it felt that way to me earlier this month, when I was thinking about what to cook for dinner.

Apparently, I felt that way last year too. Even though I made some mistakes last year.

This year was also good, but not as good. I didn’t like the wine as much (a Washington State Malbec vs a Chilean (I think) Pinot Noir). This was a bone-in roast, and also had substantially more fat on it. The rancher (same as last year) had also had the bones cut off the meat, then tied back on. I do not know why, but it prevented carving the way Mr. Bittman suggested.

Anyway, I thought you guys might want a quick look at what we had.

The raw meat. Tasty looking, but rather fatty looking. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I should trim off. In the end, I decided to leave it well enough alone. I remembered prime rib from restaurants past having big amounts of fat on the ends.

I actually realized I should sliver the garlic this time. Which made it much more easy to stuff in the roast. It should have also amped up the garlic flavor, I thought. But it didn’t seem to be much more than a whiff of garlic. Bummer for ME.

This is the rib roast just after I pulled it out of the oven & placed it on our go-to platter for big hunks of meat. The blackened bits are garlic that protruded from the meat. The lovely golden color is the fat cap having seared in a hot oven. It’s crispy and delicious.

This was the magic last year. I don’t recall how I made it, since I don’t own a roasting pan that can go on the stove. This year, I scraped up the drippings while the Pyrex pan was still HOT and then dumped everything into a stove top safe pan, added the wine, and reduced from there. It was tasty.

And, finally, the above is what we ate. Minus the sauce, which I forgot to pour on for the final shot. A fabulous food blogger, I am not.

Anyway, it was wonderfully rare and delicious. The fat turned out to be a bit much for both Bill and I, but that’s okay. The meat was tender and yummy and the wine sauce spiced it up a bit. So good.

Also, since last year was a boneless prime rib & this year’s was bone-in, and there are minutely different cooking techniques (time is the difference, I think), I’m calling this another recipe. I hesitated to do so, but decided that, in the end, Mr. Bittman has put them into a recipe and a variant, which has always been the delimiter for me. So, woo! That much closer!