Gancel's culinary encyclopedia of modern cooking

The cook should be provided with larding needles of various sizes. Cut small, smooth strips of the length required of the firmest part of a piece of larding pork. Put these bits of lardons into a larding needle. Pierce the skin and a very little of the flesh of the meat, using filet of beef, sweetbread, chicken, turkey, partridge, quail, pheasant, etc., you may wish to lard with it, having the lardons in, and the two ends of equal length outwards. These punctures for lardons are made in rows at any distance from each other the cook pleases. The flavor of larding may be obtained by raising the skin of the meat and laying a slice of fat lardons beneath it; this move is not ornamental, but gives an excellent flavor to the flesh, even better than when larded with the needles. It requires a little practice to lard neatly, but — 464 — as it is- really an easy operation, any cook may learn to do it with care. Cut the larding pork in slices, lay them one on the other (according to size), and cut strips through them the size you require, in order that they may be all the same .size. (Called in French, barde.) Cover with larding pork. Lardons should be two inches in length and one-eighth of an inch in width for larding poultry, game, etc.; for filets of beef, loin of veal or fricandeau (kernel of veal) they should be rather thicker. We owe, besides many another invaluable lesson, the following admirable description of larding to Escoffier, Urbain Dubois, Garlin, etc. (Any good cook book.) “Have the fricandeau trimmed; lay it lengthwise upon a clean cloth across your hand, forming a dam with your thumb at the part you are about to commence at. Then with the point of the larding needle make three distinct lines across, half an inch apart; run the needle into the third line at the further side of the fricandeau and bring it out at the first, placing one of the lardons in it; draw the needle through, leaving out a quarter of an inch of the lardons at each line. Proceed then to the end of the row. Then make another line half an inch distant; stick in another row of lardons, bringing them out at the second line, leaving the ends of the lardons out all the same length. Make the next row again at the same distance, bringing the ends out between the lardons of the first row, proceeding in this manner until the whole surface is larded in chequered rows. Everything else is larded in a similar way, and in the case of poultry, hold the breast over fire for one minute, or dip it into boiling water, in order to make the flesh firm.” Note: Sometimes lardons are mixed with smoked tongue or truffle for fancy pieces or decorations, according to the taste. HOW TO FRY Cooks should always have a few frying pans, and a third, not much larger than a large plate, for omelettes, fritters, etc., if they have no saute'pan. The pan must be kept delicately clean and nice; the butter, dripping lard or oil in which the fish, meat, etc., is fried, must always be “boiling hot” before the meat is put into the pan. The rule is that a sufficient quantity of fat must be heated thus in the pan — 465 —