Quote from: Phil [Chaa006] on April 12, 2015, 10:36 AM
It's called a "Meat Tenderizer" / "Fleischzartmacher" and was recommended by Dal Puri a few weeks ago.

Sadly this device fell at the second fence.  Whilst it had proved perfect for what must (with the benefit of hindsight) been a piece of pork from a rather young pig, today's free-range pork from Waitrose proved completely impervious to said device, even after removing the skin from the the flesh (as recommended by Michael T. after his butchery course) and in the end I had to use a pointed knife -- the Fleischzartmacher made no impression at all.

But a recent exchange between Kattis and Onions led to a sudden revelation :

Quote from: Kattis on May 03, 2015, 06:46 PMah ok thank you will try it next time i suppose maybe the salts helps draw the water from the onion ??

Quote from: Onions on May 03, 2015, 07:16 PMSpot on!

When making crackling or crispy pork, one is recommended to either score or stab the skin, then rub in salt.  For crispy pork in particular, one is then recommended to leave for a hour (or longer), wipe with kitchen paper, re-salt and repeat, as many as three times.  What I suddenly realised, on recalling the exchange between Kattis and Onions, is that one adds salt to draw the water out of the pork skin, not to add salt as I had always assumed.

Thank you Kattis/Onions -- it has taken me only fifty years to realise this

** Phil.

A retractable Stanley knife with the blade out to the required scoring depth works well.

I did a delicious Pork Loin roast just 3 days ago with a box cutter.  Single sided razor with a reinforced back edge of the type that goes into the grocery store metal retractable box cutter. Sometimes used in glass scrapers as well. In the actual box cutter the blade only protrudes far enough to cut through cardboard cartons (supposedly) .

The cuts were fine and I rubbed the salt but I still had to remove the skin towards the end and give it extra oven time while I rested the meat.  Worth the effort though.