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Old December 10th, 2005, 03:00 PM
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Larded beef, venison, etc. is "artificially" marbled with fat and can be done with a larding needle which can be nothing more complex than a really big sewing needle in shape, but sometimes looks almost like a big hypodermic needle without the syringe part, and either attaching a strip of pork fat to the back, in the case of the former, or filling it with a strip of pork fat in the latter case, you can insert the pork fat into your meat. If you have a larding needle that has a clip or hole in the back, allowing for your strip of fat to trail behind it, you pass your needle entirely through the meat, until only the fat is inside it, at which point you detach the fat from the needle and repeat the process. If you have the other standard type, things are a little easier: you stick the needle into your meat, and either operate a sort of plunger, or you can just use your finger or a knife tip in some models, to push the fat in and withdraw the needle at the same time. You either have to cut the strips you're going to use, or in the case of the hollow-needle-and-plunger type design, you can sometimes use the needle to cut the strips from a block of fat, the way you would core an apple, by poking the needle in, twisting it completely around, and pulling it out. Many cooks who bther to use this technique at all, though, often like to cut the strips by hand, so they can do cool stuff like marinating the strips in cognac before inserting them.

Some people often confuse barding with larding. Barding involves wrapping the meat (usually a bird of some kind) in one or more sheets of fat, which protects the meat from drying out, but also generally prevents browning. On the other hand, the fat used in barding can easily be removed after cooking.
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