Love food

When you first fall in love, every day is Valentine's Day, but after the fireworks fade, we all benefit from the occasional reminder that relationships require high maintenance. Pauline D. Loh shares a few recipes to keep sweethearts happy.

Nothing kick-starts romance like a candle-lit dinner, especially if it's home cooked. It is like a full display of peacock feathers in courtship. The human animal, bereft of natural, colorful plumage, can choose to impress instead with food adorned with love. And the range of seductive food is enormous. There are certainly more than 50 ways to feed your lover, and creativity can be inspired by shape, flavor, fragrance or aphrodisiacal qualities.

Man has been looking for food to enhance love and libido ever since Cupid shot his first arrows. In China, it is almost a dedicated art to find those magic ingredients that would make a tiger out of a man and a kitten out of a woman. Unfortunately, many are artifice more than fact.

Forget your animal appendage tonics - romance starts with a state of the mind, and the trick is to feed the imagination. Think about indulging the senses with a meal that shows the love of your life that you would stop at nothing to please him, or her. Especially the details.

Of course, there are certain foods that are traditionally supposed to enhance your readiness to mate - such as chocolate, champagne and caviar, the classic three Cs of culinary seduction.

With quality ingredients so readily available these days, you can set the mood for love in the comfort of your home, and you really do not need a Cordon Bleu certificate to pull it off.

Just as an artist chooses a palette of colors for a painted masterpiece, a cook with a purpose needs to understand the ingredients.

Caviars are rare fish roe, mainly harvested from sturgeons, but just as often now from salmon or trout. There is something sexy about spooning such expensive babies into your mouth and popping the tiny eggs as you press tongue on palate. There is a reason why they are known as "Aphrodite's pearls".

These salty shots of pure flavor have entranced gourmets since the times of the Roman orgies, along with nightingale tongues.

When buying caviar, remember the "boss" word, an acronym for Beluga, Osetra, Sevruga and Schrencki, the most well-known varieties. The last category is farmed caviar, now produced in China, from the clear clean waters of Dongjiang River and Qiandao Lake, and it is of such quality that top chefs like Nobu and Yannick Alleno have endorsed it.

What is the best way to serve caviar? Indulgently, and chilled well.

The classic way is to serve the whole jar surrounded by its traditional condiments of finely chopped onion, sieved hard-boiled eggs, sour cream and very thin triangles of Melba toast.

But try my method of using caviar to garnish a prawn salad, or make an easy but rich mushroom soup swirled with sour cream and topped with a large scoop of caviar. It will create a symphony of flavors like Beethoven's Fifth.

If you are more into assembly, try topping a single cold fat perfect oyster on the half-shell with a tiny scoop of caviar. No cooking required, and it will taste even better if you personally deliver it to your partner's waiting lips.

Oysters, too, are reputed aphrodisiacs, probably because they remind us of Venus rising from the sea. Venus, Aphrodite - whatever you call her, she's the goddess of love.

The wine of choice to go with either caviar or oysters must be champagne, that celebratory sparkler that puts the twinkle into the eager lover's eye. They don't call it the ambrosia of the gods for nothing.

Choose your favorite label, or indulge in a bottle of sparkling ice wine made from the last frozen grapes on the vines. Ice wines are for pampering occasions and none is more suitable than a dinner for two on Valentine's Day.

There is also chocolate or strawberries, both very necessary props for getting in the mood for love. Better yet, combine chocolate and strawberries. I'll give you the recipe.

But the most important ingredient for a Valentine's Day dinner is ambience. It starts with a phone call, a text message or even an e-mail, a little epistle of love and invitation that creates anticipation. That should be your first course.

Then, prepare the stage. Scent the room with a soft musk that suggests romance, and remember that overdoing it may create a pong instead. Choose lavender, musk or sandalwood oil on your candles or incense.

Next, prepare the flowers. You don't have to invest in a huge bunch of hothouse roses. Little nosegays tucked away with short messages of dedicated devotion may do the trick better - next to the plate, in the bathroom, or maybe under the marital pillow.

What's love without music? And here's where your intimate and superior knowledge takes over. Music should be wallpaper noise, a subliminal message of romance and love in the background.

Add the final ingredient (you) and you have the perfect recipe of love. Remember, you can practice this all year round.

Recipe | Caviar & Prawn Salad

Ingredients (serves 2):

250g fresh prawns

250g mixed salad greens

1 avocado, sliced

1/2 red capsicum, diced

1/2 yellow capsicum, diced

4 cherry tomatoes, sliced

2 tbsp yogurt

1 tbsp honey

2 tbsp caviar, the best you can afford

Juice of 1 lemon

Method:

1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil and add prawns. As soon as the prawns turn pink, remove them, cool and shell at once.

3. Cut each prawn into two lengthwise and remove any dark veins. Chill in fridge until needed.

4. Divide the mixed salad greens into two portions. Add the sliced avocados and cherry tomatoes, and finally, the chilled prawns.

5. Place the yogurt, honey and lemon juice into a capped jam jar and shake well to mix.

6. Spoon the dressing over the prawns and salad and garnish generously with caviar and the diced red and yellow capsicum. This salad tastes even better chilled.

Recipe | Chocolate-Dipped Strawberries

Ingredients:

1 box fresh strawberries

300g dark cooking chocolate or 64 percent couverture, chopped

100ml cream

Method:

1. Melt chocolate and cream over a pot of simmering water or in a double boiler. The only thing you have to remember is to not let the bottom of the pan of chocolate come in contact with the water.

2. Stir until the chocolate pieces are mostly melted. Remove from heat and stir until chocolate is completely melted and smooth.

3. Clean each strawberry with a damp cloth and skewer on a cocktail stick. Gently dip the bottom half of each fruit in the chocolate mixture.

4. Poke the chocolate strawberries onto a large grapefruit to cool and harden.

5. Place in the fridge to harden completely. Serve with very chilled glasses of champagne.

Recipe | Oysters

Ingredients:

12 very fresh large oysters, shucked

Crushed ice

1 lemon, sliced

Lemon halves to serve

Sea salt crystals

Method:

1. Buy the oysters whole and get your fishmonger to shell them. Keep each oyster on the half shell.

2. Pile crushed ice onto a large platter. Sit the oysters firmly on the ice and decorate with lemon slices.

3. Place the sea salt crystals on a little saucer and place a flake or two on each oyster. The salt will refresh the fragrant smell of the sea in the oysters.

4. Squeeze as much or as little lemon juice over the oysters. Eat and enjoy.

Contact the writer at paulined@chinadaily.com.cn.

(China Daily 02/03/2013 page14)