To lard, the French method is so familiar to me that I cannot but recommend it, especially to inexperienced hands. If a fricandeau, lay it lengthwise upon a clean napkin across your hand, forming a kind of bridge with your thumb at the part you are about to commence at, having previously taken all the skin from the veal with a knife, then with the point of your larding-needle make three distinct lines across, half an inch apart, run your 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 end of the bacon at each line: proceed thus 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 bacon out all of 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 like manner until you have larded the whole surface in chequered rows: proceed in a similar way with everything you lard, the difference being only in the size of the lardons, and in the case of poultry or game, previously scald the breasts. By following closely the above simple directions any cook may be able, if not to lard well, at any rate to lard well enough for every-day use, which would give practice, and likewise competence, to lard articles required upon more particular occasions.
MEAT AND POULTRY.
A FEW THINGS I OBJECT TO, THAT IS, NOT TO USE IN COOKERY COMESTIBLES WHEN OUT OF, OR BEFORE, THEIR PROPER SEASON.
For Butcher’s Meat, see page 637, Kitchen at Home.
In Poultry. I never use turkeys before Michaelmas, and not after the latter end of March.
Ditto turkey poults before the end of June, and not after September.
Capons, poulardes, pullets, and fowls, I use all the year round. I begin about March with the spring chickens, till the beginning of July.
Geese are in season almost all the year round.
Goslings, or green geese, commence early in the spring, and are called so till the end of September, thus there is hardly any difference between them and the Michaelmas geese.