Copper Stewpan.[[74]]
[74]. The line which passes round this stewpan just above the handle, is a mistake of the designer, and conveys an erroneous idea of the form of the cover, and it ought to have been omitted.
A round of buttered paper is generally put over the more delicate kinds of braised meat, to prevent their being browned by the fire, which in France is sometimes put round the lid of the braising-pan, in a groove made on purpose to contain it. The embers of a wood fire mixed with the hot ashes, are best adapted to sustain the regular but gentle degree of heat required for this mode of cooking.
Braising pans are of various forms. They are often shaped like a ham-kettle, and sometimes like the design at the commencement of this section; but a stewpan of modern form, or any other vessel which will admit of embers being placed upon the lid, will answer for the purpose as well. Common cooks sometimes stew meat in a mixture of butter and water, and call it braising.
LARDING.
Larding Pins.
Cut into slices, of the same length and thickness, some bacon of the finest quality; trim away the outsides, place the slices evenly upon each other, and with a sharp knife divide them obliquely into small strips of equal size. For pheasants, partridges, hares, fowls, and fricandeaux, the bacon should be about the eighth of an inch square, and two inches in length; but for meat which is to be larded quite through, instead of on the outside merely, the bits of bacon (properly called lardoons) must be at least the third of an inch square.
In general, the breasts only of birds are larded, the backs and thighs of hares, and the whole of the upper surface of a fricandeau: these should be thickly covered with small lardoons, placed at regular intervals, and in lines which intersect each other, so as to form rather minute diamonds.
The following directions for larding a pheasant will serve equally for poultry, or for other kinds of game:—