Manipulating the "data" from $.ajax success: function(data) {

i have this and a simple question to it.

$.ajax({
    type: "POST",
    url: "/",
    data: $(".form").serialize(),
    dataType: "html",
    success: function (data) {
        $("#id").html(data);
    }
});

Inside "data" is some html I am inserting into the DOM. Thats no problem. But I want to manipulate the "data" before doing so. How can I do that? For example there are some li elements in "data". How would I for example delete the last li element out of the "data" string before inserting it into the DOM?

I tried something like

$(data li:last)remove();

...but that didnt work.

Thanks for your help.