Honor Guard pork rib roast

The first big recipe out of Molly Stevens new book, All About Roasting: A New Approach to a Classic Art, was out of this world. For a festive Christmas dinner for the family we tried her honor guard version of bone-in pork rib roast. It is her alternative to the crown roast, which she says never cooks properly and is difficult to carve. No one can argue with her result, which lent itself to a dramatic presentation and a truly superb flavor.

I went to Whole Foods to order the roast ahead of time and was sent to the holiday order desk staffed by someone whose sole qualification seemed to be that she knew nothing about meat. Crown roast was on her computer and beef rib roast (which is what she completed an order for but we caught at the last minute), but not what I wanted. So I went back to the butcher counter (at Friendship Heights) and convinced Andres to take the order for two bone-in center cut roasts, eight ribs each, chine bone remove and ribs Frenched. He came through and tied two beautiful roasts for me, exactly according to specifications, weighing about 5 lbs. each.

The roasts are each brined in 5 c. cool water, 1/3 c. kosher salt, 2 Tbl. brown sugar, 1/4 c. honey, 3 sprigs fresh rosemary, 2 garlic cloves smashed and peeled, and 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes. You dissolve the salt and sugar solely by stirring, no heating. I put each with its brine in a ziploc bag and "refrigerated" (outside on the screen porch) for a little less than 24 hrs. I took the roasts out of the brine, patted dry and let sit for an hour at room temperature.

Then the fun begins. Each roast gets seared on the fat side, about 5 min. Then you set them parallel to each other in a roasting pan, fat side out for each, so that the ribs interlace with each other in the way an honor guard will interlace their rifles over someone passing under. You tie them together this way (don't squeeze) and put the pan into a preheated 325-degree oven for about 1 hr 45 min, until the internal temperature reaches 140.

What comes out is a spectacularly beautiful golden brown roast that we presented to the assembled diners, rested 15 min., and then carved, one beautiful thick chop for each place (I used her dressing with dried apricots and rosemary as a cushion as she recommends.) This Niman Ranch pork had a marvelous flavor wonderfully enhanced by the brining and roasting, was totally tender and juicy and was a tremendous hit among all the pork fans.

The whole dinner was very festive. We had two kinds of shrimp as appetizers -- the shrimp seviche from the Barcelona cookbook and a very nice shrimp in North African spices (got to use my Aleppo pepper!) from Olives and Oranges. To accompany the pork, we had, along with the dressing, a potato-celery root gratin and roasted brussels sprouts in brown cranberry butter, with a lettuce avocado salad to follow. Dessert was a stunning stompe de noel, like a bouche, only a tree stump instead of a log, which was beautiful and very tasty.