Each mussel was a hot and juicy mouthful, with the meat, toasted garlic, grape tomatoes and chives offering depth and raising the dish to excellence.
She picks out the meats, toasts them briefly in the oven, then ties them in a cheesecloth turkey roasting bag and puts that in with the cooking fruit to add a slight floral bitterness.
Ms. Jones herself was raised on perhaps the plainest of all plain fare: Depression-era and wartime New England cookery, with its cooked-unto-death vegetables, creamed meat on toast and "the dreaded" boiled salt cod with boiled salt potatoes on Fridays.
Hot tea and coffee, and substantial foods like pizza, meat and toast will keep your body warm as well.
But his duck laab is excellent — a salad of minced duck meat with toasted rice and ground chilies that he serves with hearts of romaine.
Almost all offer staple Brazilian fare, such as rice, feijão (black beans), meat, farofa (toasted cassava flour) and salgadinhos (a variety of savoury snacks), alongside various other dishes.
When the waiter delivered the latter — three hearts of romaine filled with minced meat and toasted rice, topped with thin rings of pickled red onion — he reassured a spice-wary diner, "I'm here if you need me".
But in Birmingham, Ala., local flavor has taken on a whole new meaning: napoleons of gulf crab meat and toasted pecans, cornmeal-dusted oysters with hickory-smoked mayonnaise, poached farm eggs, pickled cherries, Bourbon panna cotta.
The menu consists of small dishes ranging from bites to bowlfuls, and the starters — meats, cheeses, toasts — sound dangerously simple enough to skip, but they should not be overlooked.
Panini are nothing more than grown-up cheese-and-meat sandwiches toasted on a ridged grill that has a weighted top to press down the sandwich to the thickness of a waffle.
