What's the best thing to make for dinner on Valentine's day? Sharing plates. Because sharing IS caring.
Find below a deep dive in what is the best food to serve for Valentine's day according to scientific research and my recipes. They also make for great mezze recipes for date night throughout the winter months!
The food of love:
Are oysters an aphrodisiac?
Can I brew up a love potion to serve my crush?
Can any food really make you feel more in love?
I’ve asked neurobiologist and author Lucy Vincent to tell us all about it:
Well, there has to be some truth in the idea, bearing in mind that most first dates, anniversaries, engagements and weddings involve some kind of shared meal. So, what is the link between food and love, and how can we harness its power?
Firstly, eating close together “en tête à tête” is a little bit like kissing: open mouths, flowing saliva, and a shared sensory experience.
As you eat, the repeated opening of your mouths and flowing saliva mean that you’re exchanging information about what’s going on in your body and brain – liberating and capturing pheromones that indicate your interest in a more intimate exchange as well as showing off your physiological qualities: hormone levels, fertility, youth, desire, and physical fitness.
The first essential step in the food of love is therefore setting up the table to maximise shared head space. Chew with your mouths closed though, don’t take things too far!
Now, what to put on the menu? We all have strong associations between food and our emotions – it’s called the Proust effect. Smell is more effective than any other one of our senses at making us feel nostalgic. Sharing an intimate meal should therefore be a great opportunity to create a joint nostalgic moment. A new memory that’s all about the two of you. Researchers say that “such shared positive affective experiences can help us develop shared preferences and goals, leading to a mutual understanding of the world”. The power of a delicious meal! So our main objective is to make the moment unique so that it will be a shared happy memory between you, and to include as many positive sensory stimuli as you can to firmly fix that memory in your two brains. Think about food you both like but don’t eat every day, or something you’d both like to try for the first time. Add lighting, some music and laughter and enjoy yourselves. By all means have oysters if you like them, but please stay away from rhinoceros horns! Just focus on having a lovely time.
On that note, I think my main take-away is to create lots of delicious sharing plates that make for a special meal, so I’ve put together a menu below with some easy recipes to follow if you’d also like to cook up something a bit special this Valentine's day:
Blood orange whisky sour
Crisps with creme fraiche and ‘caviar’
Goat’s cheese with strawberry & balsamic jam
Steak slices with ponzu and crispy chili oil
Honey & passionfruit chocolate cups
The aim with this menu is to look and feel like you’ve gone to an high priced edgy restaurant in East London but for less money and a lot less effort than it looks. Find all the recipes either linked or below.
Side note, I went all out and made my own hummus and focaccia, and even my own crispy chili oil, but you could easily skip these steps and buy them already made to make this spread quicker. The rest is just a question of throwing things together.
Blood orange whisky sour
Ingredients:
2 blood oranges
1 1/2 lemon
4 tsp caster sugar
Whisky
1 tin chickpeas
Method:
Top and tail the blood oranges, cut off the skin following the curve of the orange then cut out each segment. I use these suprêmes in my winter caprese salad.
Squeeze the remaining piths of the oranges to get as much juice as possible into a jug.
Juice the lemon into the same jug.
Add the sugar and stir until it has dissolved (approx 1 min).
Drain the chickpeas into a glass/jug. Keep the chickpeas to make the hummus, the drained liquid in the glass is known as aquafaba and will replace an egg white in our drink.
Add ice to a shaker (or jam jar) along with 4 shots of the orange syrup, 2 shots of whisky and 2 shots of aquafaba. Shake until the shaker is too cold to hold and pour into 2 glasses.
Crisps with creme fraiche & 'caviar'
Ingredients:
Lightly salted crisps
Lumpfish 'caviar' roe
Dill
Creme fraiche (or cream cheese mixed with a. bit of lemon juice)
Method:
Simply layer the crisps with little teaspoons of caviar and creme fraiche, then finish with lots of dill scattered on top.
Goat's cheese with strawberry & balsamic jam
Ingredients:
1 soft goat's cheese
80g frozen strawberries
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp pomegranate molasses
1 tsp cracked black pepper
Sea salt
Method:
Microwave the strawberries for 3 minutes on full power.
Crush the strawberries with a fork and mix with the vinegar, molasses, black pepper and a pinch of salt.
Put the mix in the fridge and leave it for 30 minutes to cool down and set.
Serve the goat's cheese on top of the strawberry jam with crackers/bread.
Steak 'tataki' with ponzu & crispy chili oil
Ingredients:
1 thick-cut steak (I used sirloin)
1 blood orange (or regular orange)
1/2 lemon
1 lime
1 Tbs light soy sauce
1 Tbs crispy chili oil
10g salted butter
Method:
Juice the orange, lime and lemon together, remove any accidental seeds, then stir in the soy sauce. Keep this homemade ponzu sauce to the side.
Dry the steak with kitchen paper and season with fine salt.
Heat a pan on high, when it's smoking hot add the steak. Sear it on one side for 3 minutes then flip it around and sear on the other side for another minute before adding the cold butter. Cook for a further 3 minutes, spooning the melted butter onto the steak with a large spoon.
Remove the steak from the pan and onto a wire rack. Pour the melted butter on top and leave to rest for 7 minutes.
Cut the steak in thin slices.
Pour the ponzu into a deep plate, spread the steak slices out on top and finish with a drizzle of crispy chili oil all over.
Honey & passionfruit chocolate ganache cups
Ingredients:
100mL double cream
90g dark chocolate
2 tsp honey
3 passion fruits
Method:
Cut the passion fruits in half, and strain the flesh into a bowl using a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds. Press hard to get as much juice out as possible.
Break up the chocolate into a bowl and add the honey.
Heat the cream in the microwave for a minute on full power.
Pour the cream over the chocolate and honey and leave to stand for 30 seconds. Then stir until the chocolate is fully melted.
Pour the passion fruit juice into the chocolate ganache and stir until combined.
Pour the ganache into small cups or the passion fruit halves then leave in the fridge to set for a couple of hours.
Timings:
(start with the focaccia if you're making it yourself)
Make the chocolate cups
Prepare the strawberry balsamic jam
(make the hummus unless you're buying it)
Cook the carrots
Make the blood orange syrup for the whisky sours
Make the ponzu sauce for the steak
Cook the steak
Plate everything up
Make the drinks just before serving
For more content like this, check out my substack: Spoonful of Felicity.
Article by Lucy Kukstas Vincent and Felicity Vincent
Comments