Crisp Skin Pork Roast Trick

For some reason only pork roast with bone in and skin on in all 3 supermarkets in my small town carry only narrow cut that is impossible to roast with the skin on top. The meat always falls on the wide, flat side with skin on side. You can never get a crisp skin, the reason I buy this cut in first place. I have come up with a solution to keep the roast skin side up. Since picture is worth thousand words, here are 2,000 words. Try it, you will be amazed how well it works. Make sure you are using strong bamboo skewers, though. I used recycled skewers from seafood kebab but they were just about adequate, not as strong as I thought they would be. Since then I bought flat bamboo skewers from Dollar Store and they are perfect.

 

How is that for crispy skin!

Goose Feather Pastry Brush

Few weeks ago when I started to make Kolache pastry for Marjo I was faced with a dilemma as to how to separate individual little kolaches from touching each other on the baking sheet as they rise without collapsing them. At first I have tried super thin painter’s spatula but the dough got stuck to the steel blade. Than I had a flashback and saw my grandmother using thin feather brush dipped in butter to do the job. Not only that, I also remembered that my mother brought the brush to me when she visited us in Canada about 15 years ago. This is the original brush, about 80 years old and still works like a charm. The feathers are stiff and soft at the same time so you can run them in between pastry, separating and buttering them all at the same time. When the pastry came out nicely separated I was so thankful to my mom and grandma.

By the way, they are incredibly easy to clean: just dip the brush in near boiling water and it is done. The brush is also great for brushing egg wash on the dough.

Just run buttered brush in between pastry pies and they will not stck to each other in the oven.

The individual kolaches separated without any problem at all.