How to Garnish the Simplest Meal

There is one detail that separates the birthday cake from the everyday cake. It is not candles. It is not layers. It is not a perfectly piped, personalized inscription. For the birthday cakes I make, anyway, it is edible glitter.

When I bestowed a birthday cake topped with shimmering potato chips upon an unsuspecting friend recently, it did all the things you hope a little glitter will do. It surprised. It delighted. It elicited oohs, ahs and at least one incredulous “Wait, is that edible glitter?”

The line of demarcation between quotidian and celebratory is made of sparkles and sprinkles. And I’m here to tell you to cross it more than just once a year. Check your pantry (and fridge). Do you see pistachios? Black and white sesame seeds? Bread crumbs? Poppy seeds? Halloumi? You have edible glitter, savory sprinkles waiting to embellish even the simplest meal. They may lack the gleam of gold, but surprise and delight remain.

Pistachios are the sprinkle supreme of the nut world, imparting dishes with texture and color. Their softened green tones pop against the fiery orange backdrop of Hetty Lui McKinnon’s roasted spiced squash with whipped feta like nature’s Funfetti. The pistachio sprinkles are so striking that you may glance over the dish’s tangy base. But even if your eyes do, your taste buds will not.

Roasted Spiced Squash With Whipped Feta and Pistachios

View this recipe.

Almonds, less colorful but no less crunchy, are sizzled with sesame seeds and tossed with salt to scatter over Cybelle Tondu’s scrunched cabbage salad, crisp and juicy. And speaking of sesame seeds: I love white sesame seeds. I love black sesame seeds. But the two together? That’s a monochromatic moment of extravagance. Just look at how they glisten in Ali Slagle’s lemon-pepper tofu and snap peas.

And they bring a similar polka-dot pop to Yotam Ottolenghi’s soba noodles with ginger broth and crunchy ginger, which deploy another pillar of the savory-sprinkle pantheon: bread crumbs. The bread-crumb topping, spiked with crisped ginger and shallots, will keep in an airtight jar for seven days, so you can jazz up roasted vegetables, salads or pastas throughout the week.

You could even establish a house glitter, prep it on Sunday and never eat a boring meal again. Might I suggest Samin Nosrat’s herby fried shallot and bread crumb crunch? Brimming with crispy alliums, sage and rosemary, as well as fresh parsley and thyme, it’s a deeply flavorful addition to quite literally any dish. “This topping should always be in the pantry,” wrote one recipe commenter. I concur!

Poppy seeds look the most like a sweeter sprinkle — and they’re used like it, too, in cookies and cakes. But they’re equally great in more savory applications, like in the finishing mix of poppy seeds, sesame seeds, dried minced garlic and onion, and chopped mixed tender herbs that tops Amelia Rampe’s tomato and cottage cheese salad. I know, I know, it’s only March. But go ahead and bookmark that recipe for August, won’t you?

Perhaps the most unexpected sprinkle at your disposal, though, is a block of halloumi. Stick with me — or rather, stick with Ali. “Meet halloumi crumbs, a best-of-all-worlds garnish for salads, pastas and more,” she writes at the top of her new little gem salad recipe. The cheese is coarsely grated before it’s frizzled in a skillet alongside pistachios and fennel, cumin or coriander seeds (or a mix).

The result is salty and surprising, transforming the frying cheese into a sort of mythical cross between a bread crumb and a showering of Parm. You will ooh. You will ah. You will ask, “Wait, is that edible glitter?”

One More Thing!

Our friends over at Wirecutter came by my apartment recently to get a glimpse at the kitchen tools I swear by. Here’s the thing: I really, really hate doing dishes. (My mother, who grew up in a tiny Manhattan apartment, was shocked when I once told her that if I had to choose between an in-unit washer and dryer and a dishwasher, I’d choose the dishwasher. But it’s true. And at present, I have neither.)

So all my favorite gadgets are in service of one thing and one thing only: minimal cleanup. Give the article a read — maybe we share some favorites! I’d love to hear what you can’t cook without. And as my luck would have it, the 10-year-old mini-blender mentioned in the article broke, like, three days before that published, so I will now need to replace it with a Wirecutter recommendation.

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

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