Planning on making a romantic home-cooked feast for your partner this Valentine's Day? Even if you are a whizz in the kitchen there are certain foods that are guaranteed to make your evening sink faster than an undercooked soufflé.
Planning on making a romantic home-cooked feast for your partner this Valentine's Day?
Even if you are a whizz in the kitchen there are certain foods that are guaranteed to make your evening sink faster than an undercooked soufflé.
Here are some tips to make sure you both get through the evening gracefully.
1. Pick your menu carefully
If they can’t eat it gracefully, don’t serve it up. Stuffing salad leaves into your mouth without getting dressing on your face is a challenge at any time, let alone when you’re trying to keep your cool on a hot date.
Sushi may come in neat pieces, but they aren’t necessarily bitesize. Noshing whilst your mouth is stuffed with nigiri is not elegant.
And Lady and the Tramp may have been able to slurp up their spaghetti without sauce spraying everywhere, but in real life eating ribbons of pasta without getting even a tiny bit of sauce around your mouth is truly a challenge.
With slowcook dishes like this beef stew with lentils you’re safe as the meat will be so tender it will fall apart, and be a cinch to eat neatly. Or if you want to serve up a fillet of meat, don’t just plonk it on the plate. Carve it into smaller morcels like Fay Ripley has with her sweet marinated pork fillet recipe. Much easier for you and your date to cut into manageable mouthfuls.
2. Stick to your speciality
Valentine’s is not a time for experimentation. Worst case scenario, you give your date food poisoning. Best case scenario, you pull it off but you’re totally stressed all night and don’t enjoy it.
Cook something you’ve done before that you know you can do well. And don’t be tempted by crowd pleasers. Eric Lanlard may get his chocolate fondant perfect every time, but if it’s going to go wrong on one night of the year for you, it’s going to be Valentine’s. Stick to a fool-proof dessert like this Eton mess. Yum!
3. Go easy on the garlic
You might think penne arrabiata is an easy and romantic starter, but think again.
Nothing dampens a date like bad breath, and loaded with garlic, that tomato pasta dish could spell the end of romance rather than feed it. So preserve delicious dishes like this chilled almond and garlic soup for another night - and steer clear of ingredients like raw onion.
Also, if you’re adding a little spice to the evening, be careful you don’t go overboard. There’s nothing sexy about sweat dripping slowly down your date’s face because your food has too much chilli in it.
4. Avoid bones
You certainly don’t want your date choking on a fish bone, or spending their evening picking carefully through their food to avoid it. So don’t serve up fish with pesky pin bones like red snapper, or freshwater trout. Instead stick to recipes like this sea bass with herby butter sauce from Tom Aikens.
The same applies for shellfish. It might be great fun to crack open those crab claws and pull the heads off those tiger prawns normally. But plastic bibs and bits of shell in your hair can only make for valentine’s embarrassment. If you’ve got to do shellfish, go for a recipe like moules marinières where the shells open for you.
5. Leave the toothpicks out of it
What do celery, sesame seeds, parsley and pineapple have in common? Yes, they all get stuck in your teeth.
Don’t make your dinner guest dash to the loo to dig bits of dinner out of their molars. Keep corn on the cob, ribs (spare or bbq), poppy seed rolls and any other culprits off the menu to ensure your smile stays sparkling.
And if your night is dinner and a movie, pass on the popcorn, just to be safe.
Happy Valentine’s Day!