As fabulous as this dessert is, it needed just a little color—some fronds of lemongrass—to add excitement to the plate. Photograph courtesy of Richart.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KAREN HOCHMAN is Editorial Director of THE NIBBLE, and prefers plating and garnishing to the actual cooking.

November 2005
Updated August 2006

Home / Product Reviews / Main Nibbles

Garnish Glamour

Just A Slice Or A Sprig Turns A Plain Jane Plate
Into A Real Dish

General Tips
Savory Garnish Chart
Sweet Garnish Chart

As people known for their fashion sense will tell you, it’s all in the accessories. It’s the same with fine food. As easy as it is to pick the right tie or scarf to set off your suit or sweater, you can pick the right garnish for every dish you bring to the table—from toast through crème brûlée.

Deciding in advance on the garnish is part of our dinner planning process. We know that the right final touch on the plate makes people take notice. (And, as packaging is everything, it can make the dish you serve—like a plain bowl of tomato soup—seem a lot more important than it is).

In addition to matching the color and flavor of the food to the garnish, also try to select dishes with colors that complement the food. Fine restaurants don’t use a matched dinner service: each particular dish is served on a plate or in a bowl of a color and/or shape specifically chosen to enhance the food. Vanilla ice cream disappears in a white dish: it looks exciting in a red one.

General Garnish Tips

For variety, use a crinkle cutter to slice vegetables and fruits.
In addition to making peel curls, use the lemon peel tool to score the sides of lemons, cucumbers and zucchini before slicing: it makes an attractive border design.
Use vegetable cutters—like small cookie cutters—in the shape of stars, crescents, birds, and abstracts. Popular Japanese garnishes, they make beautiful accents in vegetables and fruits.
Use long cocktail picks to make garnish skewers of grapes, cherry tomatoes, and olives

NIBBLE TIP:
Skewered, not stirred: Repurpose your cocktail picks to skewer garnishes for sandwiches, lunch and dinner plates, and desserts.

Hors d'oeuvre picks
Cocktail picks from Mum’s Creations.

Garnishes For Savory Dishes

Category	Options
Breadstuffs	Breadsticks Crackers (gourmet flavors and shapes) Croutons	Flutes Papadums Tuiles
Creams	Dill, parmesan, or other flavored whipped cream, sour cream, or yogurt Crème fraîche	Dabbed onto plate or piped from a pastry bag
Flowers	Edible flowers like hollyhocks, nasturtiums, pansies and violets Herb blossoms (if you grow herbs and you plants are in flower)	Shot glasses or soy sauce bowls with sprigs of flower blossoms as plate centerpieces (arrange food around them)
Fruits	Blood orange sections Fans of apple, pear	Peel curls: citrus fruit, carrot Skewered mixed color grapes Sliced star fruit
Herbs, Spices & Seasonings	Basil (especially Thai and purple basil) Bay Leaf Capers & caperberries Chives Dandelion Dill	Display spices* *Not meant to be eaten, but to provide artistic flourishes or otherwise showcase the food, e.g. clove-studded apple slices, scatterings of mustard seeds, beds of kosher salt for oysters Pink peppercorns Rosemary Tarragon
Oils	Flavor-infused avocado, grapeseed or olive oil	Regular oil seasoned with snipped herbs
Prepared Foods	Cheese wedges or rounds Prosciutto-stuffed peppers	Rolled prosciutto, Parma or serrano ham Stuffed dates or prunes
Roe	Paddlefish caviar Salmon roe	Whitefish caviar (plain or flavor-infused)
Vegetables	Carrot peel curls Chiles Curly cress Cherry tomatoes (halved or skewered) Grape tomatoes (orange, red and yellow) Microgreens (baby arugula, mustard greens, mizuna, purslane, rapini, tatsoi, sorrel)	Miniature vegetables Mixed skewered olives or olives and cocktail onions and gherkins Mushrooms (enoki, trumpets, other exotic varieties) Scored cucumbers Scored yellow and green zucchini Sprouts (pea, radish, sunflower)
Snack-Type Foods	Gourmet potato chips or pretzels	Smoked or flavored nuts

Check farmers markets for beautiful microgreens and herbs you won’t generally find in other markets.

Garnishes For Sweet Dishes

Category	Options
Candies & Nuts	Chocolate morsels, scattered (use quality morsels from top chocolatiers) Chocolate novelties: straws, coins, decorative pieces Crushed peppermint or toffee	Marrons glacées Nuts—chopped, sliced, whole, roasted or candied Shaved chocolate (white, milk, (dark)
Cookies & Wafers	Bite-size gourmet cookies Fans Flutes	Petit fours Tuiles
Creams	Chestnut purée, sweetened Crème Anglais Crème chantilly Crème fraîche Flavored or unflavored yogurt	Regular or flavored whipped cream (almond, cardamom, ginger—the opportunities are extensive) Sour cream, sweetened or plain
Flowers	Edible flowers like hollyhocks, nasturtiums, pansies and violets Herb blossoms (if you grow herbs and your plants are in flower)	Shot glasses or soy sauce bowls with sprigs of flower blossoms as plate centerpieces (arrange food around them)
Fruits	Blood orange sections Fans of apple, pear Champagne grape clusters Citrus peel curls	Skewered berries and/or melon balls Skewered mixed color grapes Sliced star fruit Stuffed dates or prunes
Herbs & Spices	Anise Cinnamon sticks Lavender	Lemongrass Mint (all varieties)
Sauces	Butterscotch Chocolate or fudge	Coffee or mocha Fruit

We hope you’ve picked up some ideas to put to work today. If you have favorite garnishes to add, click here to tell us about them. We’re off to continue garnishing!

This white chocolate banana tart, scrumptious in of itself, still needs a bit of accessorizing to look its best. It’s wearing 5 garnishes: a dollop of whipped cream, a chocolate straw, a miniature cookie, fresh raspberries, and a mint sprig. Photograph courtesy of El Rey Chocolate. Click here for the recipe.