Money, we all know, can't buy you love. But, let us recall the words of W.H. Auden when it comes to mixing love and loot . . .
Money cannot buy/The fuel of love/But is excellent kindling.
Right on, W.H.! So if your love without limits is on an unlimited budget, what you can buy is one hell of a good time with the choicest foods in the world: caviar, foie gras, superlative scallops - sybaritic foods for serious seduction. But the foods of love need contemplation as well as consumption, so let us begin with this truly noble little essay on the art of eating caviar, written by Sarah Leah Chase and featured in her marvellous Nantucket Open House Cookbook.
Love without restraint
Caviar Tartines (or, the Best Way to Eat Caviar)
`To begin with, the best way to eat caviar is to eat only the best - Russian Beluga. "The bread must be sliced - about half an inch thick - and then spread generously with sweet butter. Sterling silver is always appropriate for this action. Then literally slather the buttered bread with a fortune of the precious eggs - more than you would ever dare be caught consuming in public. This is your basic caviar tartine - a fabulous balance of extravagance and simple peasantry.
"Repeat over and over again, breaking only for sighs of ecstacy and sips of Champagne or shots of vodka. For the duration of the caviar supply and the period of ensuing afterglow, you will know what it is like to leave the shadowy world of earthly foods . . ."
Having just spent all that money on your favourite person in the entire world, and not had to do anything other than butter some bread and slather on the caviar, why not spend some more and keep things really simple? A jar of foie gras allows us the chance to repeat our love of extravagance and peasantry.
Sean Gilley, of Terroirs, in Donnybrook, advises this course of action: "Make a simple salad with fresh rocket leaves tossed in a dressing of lemon juice and the very best olive oil. Lightly toast some good quality white bread, a yeasted loaf or even a brioche loaf. Cut the crusts off, and slice in what ever form you consider to be delicate. Open up the jar of pate, and combine the three on two plates."
Love cannot be allowed to wait while cooking is done, so we have chosen this dish of pasta with scallops for two simple reasons: firstly, it is delicious. Secondly, this dish can - literally - be made in about two minutes. If you use fresh pasta, it cooks while the sauce is cooking, toss the two together, and voila! Mixing the scallops with garlic, parsley and hot pepper flakes is a classic Italian technique, and this version of the dish is Marcella Hazan's. The dish can be made successfully with just a few scallops, incidentally. Hot pepper flakes are essential - I use those imported by Corte dei Crescenzi, tel: 01-6717450 for stockists.
Pasta with Scallops, Garlic, Parsley and Red Pepper Flakes
450g (1lb) fresh scallops
8 tablespons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon very finely chopped garlic
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Chopped hot red chilli pepper, to taste
Salt
450-675g (11 1/2 lb) pasta
45g (1 1/2 oz) dry, plain breadcumbs, lightly toasted in the oven or in a skillet
Wash the scallops in cold water, thoroughly pat dry with a teatowel and cut up into pieces about 9 mm (3/8 inch) thick.
Put the olive oil and garlic in a saucepan, turn the heat to medium and when the garlic becomes coloured a light gold, add the parsley and hot pepper. Stir once or twice, then add the scallops and one or two large pinches of salt. Turn the heat up to high, and cook for about 90 seconds, stirring frequently, until the scallops lose their shine and turn a flat white.
Do not overcook the scallops or they will become tough. Taste and correct for salt and hot pepper. If the scallops should shed a lot of liquid, remove them from the pan with a slotted spoon, and boil down the watery juices. Return the scallops to the pan, turn them quickly, then take off heat.
Toss thoroughly with cooked, drained spaghettini. Add the breadcumbs, toss again, and serve at once.
Love without superfluity
Romantic love has no need of money, for lovers live only in each other's hearts, are kept warm by the glow of love, and feast on the light in each other's eyes. Well, up to a point. Passion, in fact, tends to provoke every appetite you can think of, so a little something to eat is a good idea. So, why tomatoes? Well, because of course they were originally known as "Love Apples", and as such they are an appropriate feast for Valentine's Day. The classic dish of tomatoes a la creme is that created by Edouard de Pomiane. Here is a modern spin on the classic by Henry Harris, who serves it on toast. Harris' version serves four. Yours, of course, will be for two.
Tomatoes a la creme on Toast
1 tablespoon butter
4 large tomatoes
1 small bunch of basil
1 x 200g tub of creme fraiche
4 slices of sourdough (or, if you're feeling posh, brioche)
Melt the butter in a cast-iron skillet until foaming. Cut each tomato in half, season with salt and pepper and add to the pan, cut-side down. Saute gently for 10 minutes over the gentlest heat so the butter just foams. Reserving four large basil leaves, roughly tear up the remainder and add to the tomatoes along with the creme fraiche. Cook for another minute and if the creme fraiche looks too thick, add a few tablespoons of water. Turn the tomatoes over and cook for five minutes, or until they are soft. You may need to reduce the sauce a little to thicken, or, if it is too thick, add another tablespoon of water. Toast the bread and arrange on four plates. Roll up the remaining basil leaves and finely slice. Place the tomatoes on top of the toast, check the seasoning, spoon over the sauce and garnish with the shredded basil.
From love apples to apricots, and this smashing, sweetly savoury, simple, post-whatever snack.
Apricot and Cardamom Tarte Tatin
125g apricots
200 ml water
1 tablespoon pine nuts
50g sugar
4 cardamom pods
15g butter
1 packet of puff pastry
Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F/Gas 4.
To make the tarte tatin you will need either a seven-inch, oven-proof frying pan, or a seven-inch round tart tin.
Simmer the apricots in the water for about 10 minutes. Remove the black seeds from the four cardamom pods and crush using a pestle and mortar. Mix the cardamom powder well with the sugar.
If you are using the adaptable frying pan, then scatter the flavoured sugar over the base of the pan. Add one tablespoon of the cooking liquid from the apricots. Raise the heat and stir occasionally until you get a medium-brown caramel. Remove from the heat. Tip the pan to coat the sides, then cool and when cool rub the base of the pan with the butter. If you are using a tart tin, then caramelise the sugar with the apricot liquid in a small saucepan, pour into the tart tin, tip until the bottom and side surfaces are coated. Cool and then spread with the butter. When spreading with the butter, be careful not to dislodge the caramel.
Carefully place the apricots on the surface of the caramel, and sprinkle the pine nuts between the crevices. Roll out the pastry. Cut to fit the pan and place on top of the fruit. Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 20 minutes, until the pastry is cooked.
Remove from the oven. Put a plate on top of the pan or tin and turn the contents upside down, so the pastry forms a base with the fruit on top. Carefully replace any fruit that may have stuck to the pan or tin, but don't scrape any residue of the caramel. It will simply wrap around your knife, and stay there. Serve warm with creme fraiche, if you have it.
Our romantic meal concludes with another fruit - the quince - but this time in the form of quince cheese.
Quince cheese from Sheridans, with Lavistown Farmhouse Cheese
Quince cheese (or quince meat as the Spanish call it) is a preserve of quince and sugar, sold in small slabs, and is wonderful eaten with cheese, as the Spaniards and the South Americans do. I think a perfect partner for the quince cheese is Olivia Goodwillie's lovely, crumbly Lavistown, from Co Kilkenny, its mildness a perfect compliment to the sharp, fruity quince.
Sheridans market stalls are in the Galway Market and the Temple Bar Market on Saturday: the shops are in Kirwan's Lane, Galway, and South Anne Street, Dublin.
Love without hesitation
Love in a rush, with its delirious, louche connotations, need not just be the preserve of the adolescent affair or the secret affair, those romances conducted out of the sight of others, and all the more exciting for their air of transgression.
Today, thanks to the demands of the Celtic Tiger economy, there are probably many whose romantic lives are squeezed into a tiny space and time, finally away from the pressures of work and the demands of children and other endless responsibilities. Romance which scarcely offers the time to be savoured needs to be seized with urgency, and will be all the better for including the congratulaory, simple pleasures offered by these two cracking dishes.
The first is an idea from Annie Bell, and is simplicity itself, and you should make the recipe for four tortillas, as you will definitely eat two each. The croissants with apples and caramel ice cream is Nigel Slater's "midnight snack", which is somehow appropriate. Use the best ice cream you can afford - Collin's from Cork city or the Darina Allen ice creams which are now widely available.
Smoked Salmon and Avocado Tortilla
2 tablespoons lime juice
Sea salt
1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh red chilli
2 teaspoons finely chopped red onion
1-2 Hass avocados
4 flour tortillas
225g (8oz) smoked salmon
1 tablespoon fresh coriander leaves
Season the lime juice with salt and add the chilli and onion. Peel the avocados by incising the skin into quarters and peeling it off. Now remove the flesh in two halves and cut into long slices. Preheat the grill and toast the tortillas on both sides. Place on 4 plates, arrange the smoked salmon on top and place the avocado slices in the centre. Spoon the lime dressing over the avocado and salmon and scatter with coriander leaves. Serve straight away.
Croissants with Caramelised Apples and Caramel Ice Cream
50g butter
2 large dessert apples or 3 small ones
4 tablespoons golden caster sugar
Good slug of Calvados
4 small flaky croissants
Caramel or almond ice-cream
Melt the butter in a shallow pan. Quarter and core the apples and cut each quarter into three or four segments. When the butter is hot, add the apples and cook them till golden and almost tender, turning once to cook the other side. Then add the sugar and Calvados and cook until the mixture starts to caramelise.
Split the croissants in half and toast under a hot grill for a minute or two until warm. Remove from the heat and put a couple of generous scoops of ice-cream on each bottom half, then spoon over the hot apples and their pan juices. Just as the ice-cream starts to melt, put on the top half of each croissant and eat straight away, while the apples are still hot.