Page:The Boston cooking-school cook book.djvu/48

24 and not quite so long. To lard, insert one end of lardoon into larding-needle, hold needle firmly, and with pointed end take up a stitch one-third inch deep and three-fourths inch wide; draw needle through, care being taken that lardoon is left in meat and its ends project to equal lengths. Arrange lardoons in parallel rows, one inch apart, stitches in the alternate rows being directly underneath each other. Lard the upper surface of cuts of meat with the grain, never across it. In birds, insert lardoons at right angles to breast-bone on either side. When large lardoons are forced through meat from surface to surface, the process is called daubing. Example: Beef à la mode. Thin slices of fat salt pork placed over meat may be substituted for larding, but flavor is not the same as when pork is drawn through flesh, and the dish is far less sightly.

Boning is removing bones from meat or fish, leaving the flesh nearly in its original shape. For boning, a small sharp knife with pointed blade is essential. Legs of mutton and veal and loins of beef may be ordered boned at market, no extra charge being made.

Whoever wishes to learn how to bone should first be taught boning of a small bird; when this is accomplished, larger birds, chickens, and turkeys may easily be done, the processes varying but little. In large birds tendons are drawn from legs, and the wings are left on and boned.

In buying birds for boning, select those which have been fresh killed, dry picked, and not drawn. Singe, remove pinfeathers, head, and feet, and cut off wings close to body in small birds. Lay bird on a board, breast down.

Begin at neck and with sharp knife cut through the skin the entire length of body. Scrape the flesh from backbone until end of one shoulder-blade is found; scrape flesh from shoulder-blade and continue around wing-joint, cutting through tendinous portions which are encountered; then bone other side. Scrape skin from backbone the entire length of body, working across the ribs. Free wishbone and collar-bones, at same time removing crop and windpipe;