Valentine’s Day doesn’t inspire within me great frenzied levels of interest, but I do care about (a) drawing attention to myself and (b) encouraging you to make delicious food. If you haven’t got plans already, avoid perching side-by-side with all the other awkward couples like toothpicked cubes of cheese and pickled onions stuck into a halved grapefruit and stay in, instead (then go out to dinner the next night — let it not be said that I’m not here for the restaurant industry). This round-up is much simpler than fiendish beast that is my annual Christmas Gift Guide, but there’s plenty to choose from and I’ve tried to select a few unsung heroes from my back catalogue.
Whether your dance card is full this Valentine’s Day with multiple mouths to feed or it’s single servings — this one goes out to all the lovers.
Starter for two
And there’s nothing stopping you making these the whole story, or jumping straight to dessert afterwards. Consider browsing my various dip recipes on here if you want to create a laden table for idle bread-swiping.
1. Potato-wrapped green beans with basil salt
“slightly scorched beans encased in, essentially, a giant kettle chip”
vegan, gluten-free
2. Pea, mint, and avocado salad
“gorgeously delicious – all you need to worry about is the state of your avocado”
vegan, gluten-free
3. Feta with chilli oil pine nuts
“the smooth yoghurty tang of feta and the delicate heat of the sizzling-then-subsiding chilli oil is magic”
gluten-free
I heart you
Chronic over-explainer though I may indefatigably be, and despite us being in a global media literacy drought, I’m hoping this one speaks for itself.
4. Chocolate caramel hearts
“are these fast? Absolutely not. Easy? Not exactly. Messy? To an unhinged degree! But do they require only 3 ingredients? Yes”
vegan, gluten-free
5. Marble heart cookeis
“like a topographical map from a cartoon land, the most delicious and low-stakes Rorschach test”
vegan
6. Pumpkin seed pastry hearts
“these ramshackle hearts, with a gentle evocation of the flavours of baklava”
vegan
Labour of L.O.V.E.
Only if they’re worth the effort.
7. Vegan carne adovada
“without exaggeration, one of the greatest recipes I’ve ever tasted”
vegan, gluten-free
8. Corn butter risotto
“it’s like what lemon curd is to lemons in flavour and texture – like corn yelling its own name through a megaphone”
vegan, gluten-free
9. Cardamom thyme chocolate puddings
“a pudding of such dense, dark lusciousness that you half expect a curious hippo’s nostrils to emerge through its surface”
vegan, gluten-free
Say it with pasta
The most romantic food, I do not seek debate on this matter.
10. Bucatini with chilli oil pumpkin seeds
“the jovial heat of the gochugaru, the aromatic fennel…twirling in a merry vortex around your fork“
vegan
11. Lemon vodka pasta
“my corruption of beurre blanc, this is buttery yet delicate and sublimely lemony”
12. Pasta with three-nut pesto
“walnuts give body and bitter smokiness, pistachios give creamy richness and pine nuts are all…you know, pine-nutty”
vegan
13. Creamy gochujang tomato pasta
“the sundried tomatoes provide the midpoint between the other two red ingredients – intense and savoury but darkly sweet”
vegan
14. Pappardelle with calamari, corn, and mascarpone
“glorious in its vastness, the pasta echoes the bounciness of the calamari, ribboning silkily around the corn”
15. Truffle mushroom pasta with gremolata
“oyster mushrooms for texture and pronounced funghi richness, brown buttons for barky intensity”
vegan
Significant other showstoppers
These are all incredible but I think they’re more for the person you know very well rather than a first impression, but if you’re feeling confident I shall not stand in your way.
16. Kimchi tagliata
“rich and celebratory and exquisitely composed, yet completely uncomplicated”
gluten-free
17. Forty cloves of garlic with potatoes and artichoke hearts
“the garlic, partially braised and partially roasted, grows soft and buttery and caramelised, and astonishingly mellow“
vegan, gluten-free
18. Zibdiyit gambari
“the tomatoes reduce into a thick, lusciously saucy coating for the prawns, themselves as tender and translucent as segments of tomato flesh“
You go and save the best for last
End on a high note and it doesn’t matter if you served oven fries (I mean it really doesn’t, if they’re oven fries that came from the heart.)
19. No-bake chocolate ganache tart
“the square shape adds to the sturdiness, making the ganache seem even more astonishingly satiny in comparison”
20. Chocolate pistachio fudge
“melt and stir, that’s literally it—and the results are so luscious, so elegant, so immediately celebratory and generous”
vegan but doesn’t have to be, gluten-free
21. Simple rhubarb and custart tart
“sour-sweet like fizzy candy with flaky puff pastry bearing tender rhubarb stems like tubes of pink liquid lipstick on a shelf”
vegan
22. Fernet-Branca stracciatella ice cream
“the Fernet’s aggressiveness is mollified into gentle tones of mint and the bitterness of the chocolate is a natural pairing”
gluten-free
23. Passionfruit panna cotta
“sherbetty, twinkling sour-sweetness – like a cloud made of citric acid – the perfect marriage of texture and flavour”
vegan, gluten-free
24. Twin Peaks ice cream
“the toasty, nutty coffee and almond-adjacent sourness of the cherries are made for each other – Special Agent Dale Cooper levels of friendly”
vegan, gluten-free
Music lately
Brain Stew by Green Day, I periodically like to revisit their 2005 Bullet in a Bible concert film, not a little influenced by the fact that I was in that very audience captured that night. The section where they lean towards their back catalogue is particularly magic, I enjoy the way Billie Joe Armstrong lets go of enunciation with a kind of anesthetised joie de vivre.
Cyclical by Cassowary featuring Tyler Cole, I love how the piano has the bombastic funk of a bass guitar. I haven’t listened to this in a while but it’s so timeless.
I braved the vicious heat last week to see Charli XCX at Laneway, she was magnificent and finished with I Love It, a song whose power I can never overstate, not with all the adjectives in the world, the sort of song that has you understanding why humans have tried to fly since we first realised we were stuck to the ground. Somewhat aggravatingly, Laneway was on Waitangi Day, interrupting my usual contemplative plans; I can’t say hand on heart that this was what my ancestors had in mind for me in 1840, but…it was a very good day last week nonetheless.
World on a String by Neil Young, there is such an easy, off-kilter grace to this song and indeed, entire record.
PS: ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal continues to work to deliver water to people in Gaza who desperately need aid and is worth donating to if you’re looking for somewhere to put your spare money.
Hungry and Frozen 