in whispers, the usual buzz and clatter reduced to a muffled sigh. Home is the place to be. More than that, there is something about cooking a special meal for someone you love that seems to mean more than simply sliding your credit card to a waiter.
I can find no reason not to go over the top on this night of the year: candles, Champagne, a chocolate pudding. St Valentine’s is rather like Christmas, in that if you ignore it you always end up regretting it, feeling mean and cynical. Yes, it is more than a bit cheesy, but I think we have to go with it.
Linguine alla vongole
small clams in their shells – 500g
a glass of white wine or vermouth
linguine or spaghettini – 300g
garlic – 2 cloves
olive oil – 3 tablespoons
crushed dried chilli – a good pinch
flat-leaf parsley – a small bunch
Scrub the clams, throwing away any that are chipped or wide open. Leave them to soak in cold water for half an hour or so. This will clear some of their inherent grit.
Put a large pan of water on to boil. Drain the clams and tip them into a medium-sized pan set over a moderate heat. Pour in the white wine or vermouth and cover them tightly with a lid. After two minutes, no longer, lift the lid and check their progress. If most of the shells are open, turn off the heat. If not, give them a minute or so longer.
Generously salt the boiling water and lower in the pasta. Lift the clams from their liquor and pick out each morsel of clam flesh. Discard the shells, but not the cooking liquor.
Peel the garlic and slice it thinly, then let it soften in a tablespoon or so of the olive oil over a low heat. It must not colour. Stir in the dried chilli, then roughly chop the parsley leaves and add them. Let them cook briefly, then strain in the cooking liquor from the clams and let it bubble down for a minute.
Test the pasta for doneness; you want it to be tender but on the tacky side. About nine minutes should do it. Drain the pasta, tip it in with the clam liquor, then stir in the shelled clam meat. Grind over a little black pepper and pour in the remaining olive oil, then toss gently and serve in warm, shallow bowls.
Enough for 2, with seconds
Hot chocolate puddings
It is strange that, despite having a long and passionate love affair with the stuff, I so rarely cook with chocolate. I attempt to redress the balance with these little chocolate puddings – fluffy outside and molten within, a cross between a soufflé and a sponge pudding. I make them with the best chocolate I can get my hands on. Usually Valrhona’s Manjari or something from the Chocolate Society. The hazelnut spread, such as Nutella or Green & Black’s, sounds an odd addition, an intrusion perhaps, but in fact lends a lingering, nutty depth. If you feel the need to offer cream (and well you might), make it a jug of pouring cream. This recipe is too fiddly to do for two, so I make enough for four and eat the extra two cold the next day, with a drizzle of cream.
dark, fine-quality chocolate – 200g
caster sugar – 100g
eggs – 3
butter – 60g
chocolate hazelnut spread – 2 lightly heaped tablespoons
Set the oven at 200°C/Gas 6. Lightly butter 4 small ramekins or ovenproof cups.
Break the chocolate into rough pieces and put it in a basin suspended over a pan of gently simmering water. Let it melt without stirring, occasionally poking any unmelted chocolate down into the liquid chocolate.
Put the sugar into a food mixer, separate the eggs and add the yolks to the sugar. Beat till thick and creamy. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites till airy and almost stiff.
Stir the butter into the chocolate and leave to melt, then gently stir in the chocolate hazelnut spread. Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg and sugar, then carefully fold in the beaten egg whites with a metal spoon. Take care not to overmix. Just firmly, calmly mix the egg white into the chocolate, making certain there are no floating drifts of egg white.
Scoop into the four buttered dishes and place on a baking sheet. Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes, till risen. The tops should be cracked and the centres still slightly wobbly. Should you open one too early, it can go back in the oven without coming to as much harm as you might think.
Enough for 4
February 15
A minimal
supper
Miso soup, made with a couple of tablespoons of yellow miso paste to a litre of boiling water, is something to have on days when you really cannot be bothered to cook. It manages to be both sustaining and light at the same time, and will take anything else you care to throw at it, by which I mean mushrooms, noodles, Chinese greens or crisp French beans. Tonight I have it just as it is, a meal that stretches the notion of minimal eating to its limit. Dessert is pineapple, cold from the fridge.
February 16
I fall for some exquisitely delicate pâtisserie from a flashy new shop in Soho. Tiny pastries like jewels, and precious in the extreme. They sit awkwardly with tonight’s supper and its rough edges and big flavours. Charming though they are, the little cakes would have been much better with last night’s miso soup, proving that it is not just what you eat but how you eat it.
Sausage and black pudding with baked parsnips
onions – 2 medium
groundnut oil
medium parsnips – 4, or 2 very large
butcher’s sausages – 4
black pudding – 250g
the leaves from a few sprigs of thyme
chicken stock – 250ml
Set the oven at 190°C/Gas 5. Peel the onions and slice them in half from root to tip, then cut each half into about six or eight pieces. Soften them slowly in a tablespoon or so of oil in a flameproof baking dish or roasting tin set over a moderate heat. While they are softening, peel the parsnips and cut them into short, thick chunks. Add them to the onions and leave to colour, turning up the heat a little if needs be.
Cut each sausage into three and add to the pan. Cut the black pudding into thick slices, then cook them with everything else till they are golden on the outside. It is important that everything is a good colour before you proceed. Stir in the thyme and the chicken stock. Bring to the boil, then put in the oven for thirty to forty minutes, until the parsnips are truly tender and the stock has reduced to a syrupy
