I take a scientific approach to everything including cooking meat.  It turns out that the technique I have finally settled on, brief surface searing followed by slow roasting at very low temperature has a scientific basis to produce the most flavorful and tender meat.  I have found that it also works well for making crispy cheese chips.  Here’s a quote from this scientific article:  “Moist heat cookery methods could be improved by applying a prebrowning or searing (high initial temperature). Searing the meat creates a surface barrier of denatured proteins which may reduce the moisture loss, odor component loss (i.e., soluble proteins and fat) and facilitate the Maillard reaction (Whitfield and Mottram ²⁰⁰⁰; Aalhus et al. ²⁰⁰⁷), developing an appropriate roasted flavor and aroma (Jeremiah and Gibson ¹⁹⁹⁹).”  To translate this into layman’s language if you cook your meat at high temperatures the fibers that surround the muscle bundles get tough and stringy and the tendons and ligaments dry out and become almost impossible to cut.  On the other hand if you slow roast the meat the muscle fibers do not toughen and the tendons and ligaments turn to jelly (that’s why the meat “falls off the bone”).  With regard to the crisps if you cook them at high temperature you have to watch them constantly and it is easy to burn them ruining a lot of good cheese.  With the slow method they still get crunchy and you don’t have to worry about burning them.  So without further nerdiness and with lots of pictures I will tell you how I make crunchy, flavorful Cheese crisps, fall of the bone beef ribs and cut with a fork roasts in the same oven at the same time.

The Ingredients

Ingredients:  A 3 lb Ribeye Roast, 1 Full rack of of Center Cut Beef Ribs (these are not short ribs but you could cook them the same way), 3/4 lb crispy cooked bacon crumbled, 11 oz Pepper Jack Cheese,  11 oz grated Cheddar Cheese and Dry Spice Blend (I’ll say how I do it later.  Feel free to get creative here.) 

Procedure

 

• Preheat oven to the boiling point of water where you live.  If you live at sea level that means 212F.  If you live in Albuquerque, NM like me at 5500 ft altitude that means 205F.  Here’s a guide (At sea level, water boils at 212 °F. With each 500-feet increase in elevation, the boiling point of water is lowered by just under 1 °F. At 7,500 feet, for example, water boils at about 198 °F.)
• Prepare your spice blend.  I usually use about 2 heaping tablespoons of Montreal Steak Seasoning, then 1 teaspoon of of fresh ground black pepper, cumin, turmeric, paprika and onion powder and finally 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder and salt.
• I always start out by cooking a pound of bacon in the 2 large skillets I use starting with 3 ounces of melted butter in each and slow cooking the bacon until crispy.  See Instructions in this post for details.   
• Crumble about 3/4 of the pound of bacon into small pieces and set aside.
• Shredd 11 oz of the 2 cheeses (you can use any kind of cheese and additives you want.  This is an opportunity to get creative.
• Add the bacon bits to the cheddar cheese and stir in.
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• Grab a handful of cheese and form it into about a 1 1/2″ ball.
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• Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and put the balls on them.
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• Cut the rack of ribs into individual ribs.
• I put on disposable nitrile gloves which I get at Harbor Freight ($5 for a box of 100).  They are identical to doctor’s exam gloves but are blue.  I then sprinkle each rib and the roast with my spice blend and rub it into the meat.  I find that if I try to rub the meat with bare hands the rub “cakes up” on my hands but for some reason doesn’t with the gloves.
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• I then use the bacon fat and butter in the pans I fried the bacon in at the same temperature I cooked the bacon and brown the ribs and roast on all sides for no more than 30 seconds a side just enough to brown it.  When Browned I put them into a roasting pan greased with bacon fat.
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• I then pour the bacon grease and butter from both frying pans over the meat.
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• I then put the roasting pan and the 2 cookie sheets in the oven preheated to the boiling point of water and shut the door.
• I set the timer on my smartphone for 3 hours and 45 minutes, put it into my pocket and forget about the cooking until it goes off.
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• When I take it out it looks like this and dinner is served 🙂
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• Separate the crisps and dig in :-))
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If you would like to discuss this further or have other data, please join my Facebook Group “Zero Carb Doc”, email me at ZeroCarbDoc@gmail.com or comment on this post.  

If you missed my last post called “How Fat Through the Magic of the Incretin Hormone System Helps you Lose Weight and Beat the Metabolic Syndrome.” you can view it by CLICKING HERE.