This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to our very opinionated editors’ favorite things to eat, drink, and buy.
My kitchen pantry is like a black hole. Things go in and never come out! It’s crammed with spices bought on a whim from Kalustyan’s, jars of jam with cute labels, and crazy-shaped pasta that collect dust in the back of my shelves. I’m trying to be better about purging in 2020! But there’s one thing that won’t be leaving its place in my cabinet: my trusty Zesty Z Za’atar, because I use it on absolutely everything.
Stirred into rice, drizzled onto fried eggs, or swirled with yogurt and eaten with pita, it’s my go-to condiment. Zesty Z’s founder Alex Harik based his Lebanese spice mix on the version his mother made for him as a kid, which has thyme, sumac, oregano, salt, and sesame seeds. The bright acidity from the sumac combined with the earthiness of the thyme and oregano make it perfectly balanced. Plus, the za’atar comes already mixed up with olive oil in the jar, so it’s ready to spread on just about anything.
My favorite dinner party trick? Smearing it on a chicken and roasting the whole thing low and slow (so the seeds don’t burn). The result is tart, earthy, crunchy, and much better than anything else my vacuum of a spice cabinet can produce.
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